Preventing Spam

Two modules are included in all versions of the Community Media Starter Kits to limit the number of spam submissions a site gets.

Bad Bot - Badbot is a spam-prevention tool (compatible with all forms on the site). It works by requiring the client to have JavaScript support, throwing an error when JS support is not present. Spam bots cannot handle JS, so this goes a long way towards blocking them without displaying pesky (and unreliable) captchas.

Captcha - A CAPTCHA is a challenge-response test most often placed within web forms to determine whether the user is human. The purpose of CAPTCHA is to block form submissions by spambots, which are automated scripts that post spam content everywhere they can. The CAPTCHA module provides this feature to virtually any user facing web form on a Drupal site.

The core Captcha module includes a few simple types of captchas (Math, etc), but there are other modules that can be added like ReCaptcha (Google) and Draggable Captcha.

Regardless of whether a form is to create a new user, make a comment, submit a survey using Webform, or register for an event in CiviCRM, if some nothing is done to prevent a bot from submitting the form, you will receive bot submissions. Even if the user requires admin approval or the content isn't published, the bot will try to submit the form. Why? The bot is dumb, but submitting the form cost nothing and when the bots find a site that allow them to publish links to "cheap mortgages", "cheap viagra", etc it can skew Google's search results to rate a site higher.

While these modules are currently effective in preventing most spam, this is an "arms race" between the hackers trying to publish spam and website administrators trying to maintain a website. If you find your site is letting spam through, please check to see that we are including the most recent version of the spam prevention modules in the Community Media Starter Kits. If we aren't, open an issue in the version of the starter kit you are using (Easy, Medium, Difficult) or start a discussion in the Community Media Group on G.D.O.