Comment Section

[EMT]

I have a mysql database comment section and was getting spammed. I've now added a captcha to the form but it is still getting spammed like crazy. How can I stop this or do I need to only allow commenting through my members area? I hope this can be resolved without moving it into my members area because I dont want to make my visitors register to comment on videos. Can this be happening because the spammer already knows the path to my database or what? Thank You in advance.

[ssystems]

If you have set up a captcha and still getting spammed "programmatically" the simple explanation is that your captcha doesn't work or is not secure enough. You can also be experiencing manual entries from your viewers. If that's the case the best solution that I would do is to add a flag on your database and on your admin side toggle it on or off whether you want to display it or not.

[EMT]

WOW! Thanks for replying so fast (ssystems). Because the spam's are very long and many of them (100 or more per day) I'm thinking the captcha is the problem so I will first try working on that. The form cannot be submitted until the captcha is completed. Does that mean it is working? I'm assuming not. I'm new to databases so I don't know what you mean by "add a flag on your database and on your admin side toggle it on or off whether you want to display it or not". Please explain or provide a link to a site I can learn more. Thanks again.

[ssystems]

It doesn't necessarily mean that they can't proceed if the captcha is empty. Are you checking it on your code behind? Sessions?

Unfortunately I can't find a tutorial doing the same thing I mentioned about the flag. But in general what you'll need to do is

1. On your comments table add another column perhaps "isApproved" that is boolean and default to false
2. I'm assuming you have an admin interface that you can see all the comments on the site, if that's so write a simple script to set the "isApproved" to true for those that you think should display on your site.