[Ruby] Recommended anti-spam controls - was Re: RubyHolic Down

[Phil Hagelberg]

"Geoffrey Grosenbach" <boss at topfunky.com> writes:

> Tim Lucas uses Ajax comments to great effect:
>
> http://toolmantim.com/article/2007/12/3/comment_spammers_currently_at_zero

I don't like the idea of requiring Javascript or images, so what I do is
have a hidden form field that JS changes before the submission, but if
it fails (no JS) it gives you a message saying "If you don't have JS
installed, try submitting again." and redisplays the form with the
hidden field set to the correct value. This way it doesn't disallow
blind or JS-paranoid folks. The extra step is a bit of an annoyance, but
no solution is perfect, and it's far better than simply disallowing
those kind of comments. I haven't had any bad stuff get through, though
my spam levels before were more of the bad-but-not-horrific type.

-Phil