[wp-hackers] More anti-spam ideas

[Owen Winkler]

David Schlosnagle wrote:
> With the plugin
> hooks, you could easily make your own filters to increase or decrease
> a comments score.

This is what I've been saying.  There is an easy place to insert a 
comment plugin hook: check_comment()

Currently, this function returns true if the comment is automatically 
accepted for posting based on the internal spamword check.  If the 
function could also pass the relevant data (name, email, url, ip, 
comment) to a plugin hook (separated by CR, comment last? 
array/object?) then anyone could create a plugin that handles comments 
the way they like.

This would allow anyone to develop a SpamAssassin-like filter, filter by 
URL content, verify the comment against post content, or whatever.  One 
could also apply more than one filter, and these filters could be 
developed by separate parties.

If check_comment() returned one of three values instead of just 
true/false, it could be one of "Post", "Moderate", or "Delete".  This 
could deal more efficiently with comments that are obviously spam (by 
repeat offending IP, for instance).

Upon adding this hooks, it might also be nice to add hooks to the 
outgoing moderation email so that plugins could attach their own notes 
to the messages.  This would be good for implementing some of Kitten's 
spam functions directly without core code changes.

Owen