[drupal-devel] Dealing with spam (was rel=nofollow)

[Dries Buytaert]

Chris Messina wrote:
> I would like to go out on a limb and propose that we coordinate an
> effort to create an open source anti-spam solution that can easily be
> ported to the various OS CRM/Blog platforms, is centrally coordinated
> (possibly by Drupal, but it really doesn't matter who takes it) and
> provides best practices and avoidance techniques for website
> administrators.

Aren't "bayesian filtering", "black listing" and "captcha" examples of 
solutions that are _already_ available in most CMS platforms?

Programmatically it is nearly impossible to cooperate: we use different 
database abstraction layers, a different comment system, different 
coding standards, different permission schemes, etc, etc.

What is of interest to us are algorithmic descriptions of anti-spam 
solutions and experience reports.  However these are _intensively_ being 
researched by governments, academia and the industry.  Their research 
results are often published for all to implement and use.  Random 
example: http://spamconference.org/.

In fact, Drupal's spam module and Wordpress' spam plugin exist because 
we have access to such information/results.  Most of the time, it simply 
boils down to implementing published algorithms/techniques.

Furthermore, Drupal's and Wordpress' modules being released under terms 
of the GPL, are available for others OSS projects to copy, change, 
improve and distribute.  If other projects are interested in our 
anti-spam code, they can and will use it.  If developers want to 
cooperate or learn from each other, they can and will.  With or without 
establishing a /formal/ entity.

That said, the more we can co-operate to fight spam, the better.  I'm 
just not sure how it would work, or whether it would be successful.

-- 
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/