Spamkill? More like Spambruise

[The Humanaught]

Hi... sorry, don't mean for that headline to sound critical at all of Pligg, as I love it more than a cold beer on a hot day.... ok, that's not entirely true.

Anyway, I'm really wondering why the Spamkill feature is so nice to the spammers? Why are we still just changing their password and not removing them and their offending posts right from the database?

There was some issues of how this might hurt comments made by the offender - but in practice, how many spammers are leaving comments?

Also, the whole "discard" thing leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth - it inflates the database and leaves the linkylove intact (for anyone with a reasonably good PR rating - which is why you're being spammed in the first place).

Am I the only person who wants a stronger solution? Does anyone have any idea how to implement this? I'm comfortable with PHP, but a little unclear on the MySQL commands needed to mod the function.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Ryan

[The Humanaught]

Nadda, eh?

[The Humanaught]

Hi folks, finally had a chance to take a look at this today, and think I've come up with a stronger solution than the default Killspam function.

Basically, I hate clogging up my database with discarded stories that are spam. So, here is how to modify your Killspam function to really KILL the spam, not just sweep it under the rug.

I've been testing it on my site and it seems to work, but let me know if I'm missing something and am freckin' up things.

This method simply adds a second option to the Killspam This User page (accessed via the User Management page). It does not remove/replace the original function, so if you just want to bruise the spam, and not kill it - you'll still have that option.

Step 1: admin_users.php
Find the function called "yeskillspam" (around line 313) and follow it down to where it ends (around line 343) and insert the following code:

PHP Code:

//////////////////////////////////// NEW KILL SPAM //////////////////////////////////////////
        if ($_GET["mode"] == "yeskillspam2"){ // killspam step 2
            $user= $db->get_row('SELECT * FROM ' . table_users .' where user_login="'.$_GET["user"].'"');
            
            canIChangeUser($user->user_level);
            
            if ($user) {
                
                $db->query('DELETE FROM `' . table_users . '` WHERE `user_id` = "'.$_GET["id"].'"');
                $db->query('DELETE FROM `' . table_links . '` WHERE `link_author` = "'.$_GET["id"].'"');
                $db->query('DELETE FROM `' . table_comments . '` WHERE `comment_user_id` = "'.$_GET["id"].'"');
                
                // breadcrumbs and page title
                $navwhere['text1'] = $main_smarty->get_config_vars('PLIGG_Visual_Header_AdminPanel');
                $navwhere['link1'] = getmyurl('admin', '');
                $navwhere['text2'] = $main_smarty->get_config_vars('PLIGG_Visual_Header_AdminPanel_1');
                $navwhere['link2'] = my_pligg_base . "/admin_users.php";
                $navwhere['text3'] = $main_smarty->get_config_vars('PLIGG_Visual_Breadcrumb_User_Disable_2');
                $main_smarty->assign('navbar_where', $navwhere);
                $main_smarty->assign('posttitle', " / " . $main_smarty->get_config_vars('PLIGG_Visual_Header_AdminPanel'));
                
                // pagename
                define('pagename', 'admin_users'); 
                $main_smarty->assign('pagename', pagename);

                header("Location: ".my_pligg_base."/admin_users.php");
                
                
            }
            else{showmyerror('userdoesntexist');}
            
        }
/////////////////////////////////// END New KILL SPAM //////////////////////////////////// 


Step 2: /templates/yget/admin_templates/user_killspam_step1_center.tpl
Replace this:

<fieldset><legend><img src="{$my_pligg_base}/templates/{$the_template}/images/user_killspam.png" align="absmiddle" /> {#PLIGG_Visual_Breadcrumb_User_Killspam#}</legend> <table style="border:none"> <tr><td>{#PLIGG_Visual_View_Killspam_Step1#}</td></tr> <tr><td><a href = "{$my_pligg_base}/admin_users.php?mode=yeskillspam&user={$user}&id={$id}">{#PLIGG_Visual_Ban_Link_Yes#}</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="javascript:history.back()">{#PLIGG_Visual_Ban_Link_No#}</a></tr></td> </table> </fieldset>

With this:

<fieldset><legend><img src="{$my_pligg_base}/templates/{$the_template}/images/user_killspam.png" align="absmiddle" /> {#PLIGG_Visual_Breadcrumb_User_Killspam#}</legend> <table style="border:none"> <tr><td>{#PLIGG_Visual_View_Killspam_Step1#}</td></tr> <tr><td>Bruise The Spam: <a href = "{$my_pligg_base}/admin_users.php?mode=yeskillspam&user={$user}&id={$id}">{#PLIGG_Visual_Ban_Link_Yes#}</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="javascript:history.back()">{#PLIGG_Visual_Ban_Link_No#}</a></tr></td> <tr><td>Slaughter The Spam: <a href = "{$my_pligg_base}/admin_users.php?mode=yeskillspam2&user={$user}&id={$id}">{#PLIGG_Visual_Ban_Link_Yes#}</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;| &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="javascript:history.back()">{#PLIGG_Visual_Ban_Link_No#}</a></tr></td> </table> </fieldset>

Now when you visit the Kill Spam page, you'll be presented with two options instead of one. The first option, "Bruise The Spam", is the original Pligg default Kill Spam, the second option, "Slaughter The Spam", is the tougher - scrub it from the database - method.

This removes the offending user, all their posts and all their comments from the MySQL database.

*** PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BACKUP YOUR DATABASE AND THE RELATED FILES BEFORE USING THIS - IT WORKS FOR ME BUT I MAKE NO GUARANTEES ***

[ryanshyper]

Humanaught....NICE WORK. Works great - haven't seen any issues yet. Will let you know if I do. Thank you for the contribution. Also - This should be added to the core build.

[The Humanaught]

I've been using it for more than two months now and have had no problems at all. I am really unclear what the thinking was in having the "discard" function as the default in the first place. I assumed it was because it would leave holes in the database or whatnot, but if a spammer is a spammer... I don't want anything of theirs in my database.

I left the original one in there in case I want a less harmful way to control posts, but I rarely - if ever - use it.

What I'd like to incorporate into this once I have a bit more time is a way to auto-add the URL to the anti-spam text file. Currently it's an extra step in the spam removal process.

[ryanshyper]

Humanaught - after using this I had some problems viewing user profiles. I went though the database and deleted all references to these patient IDs and it resolved the problem. There were 3 or 4 tables - including pligg_messages, pligg_comments, and the largest was pligg_pageviews. A description can be found here: god/admin profile problem

[tbones]

What does standard Killspam exactly do in v9.5+ ? The only difference I realized was to change the password to something unknown and the email address to blank@blank.com. The user is still visible in the system.

Humanaught´s solution sounds good. I will give it a try as soon as ryanshyper´s problerms are solved with a fix.

[tbones]

Is such a solution available on a story basis, i.e. for a single story as admin link or like comment management for all discarded stories?

[graphicsguru]

this may help Method for deleting discarded stories

Fight Spam and Splog

[tbones]

Thank you for the link :-)