Using Mollom to prevent spam

Mollom is a web service that help to protect you from unwanted contributions to your site by your site visitors. It uses textual analysis and other techniques to analyze user-submitted content to your site (such as in comments or webforms) and categorize it into "spam" (unwanted content) and "ham" (good content).

All Drupal Gardens websites come with "Mollom-Free" accounts and pre-installed access keys to the Mollom spam protection service. User comments are protected by default, but you can also use Mollom to protect any other form on your website. For more information about comments, see Comments.

Configuring Mollom form protection

To configure the Mollom protection settings for a form on your website:

1. Go to Configuration > Mollom spam blocking and content moderation.

   

2. Find the form you want to configure, and then click its Configure link.
3. Configure the form's protection settings, based on the following information:
   • Protection mode
     • Text analysis - User comments are rejected or placed in moderation if identified as spam, accepted if identified as "good," and require a successful CAPTCHA entry and validation if uncertain.
     • CAPTCHA - All user comments require a successful CAPTCHA entry and validation.
   • Analyze text for - Use these checkboxes to configure Mollom to look for spam, profanity, or both.
   • Text fields to analyze - Use these checkboxes to configure Mollom to analyze the subject, submission title, or both for objectionable content.
   • Text analysis accuracy - Select from the options to configure Mollom to be more (Strict) or less (Relaxed) likely to consider uncertain comments as spam. The default value is Normal.
   • When text analysis identifies spam - Select from the options to either automatically delete Mollom-identified spam or to place them in the moderation queue (viewed at Content > Comments > Unapproved comments).
4. Click Save.

You can also use Mollom to add protection for other forms on your website. To do this, click the Add form link on the Forms tab and then select the form you want to protect.

If you want to unprotect a form, click its Unprotect link and confirm your choice on the next screen. You can only unprotect forms if comment moderation is selected for anonymous site visitors.

Blacklists

Use the Blacklists tab to provide Mollom with entries relating to three separate categories of custom text snippets that you want to define as spam in your users' comments.

• Spam - Unwanted external text, such as advertising or links to unrelated sites.
• Profanity - Language unacceptable to you and your user community.
• Unwanted - Material off-topic or irrelevant to the form or your website.

For each text item that you want to block you need set the following things:

• Context - Where to look for the text that you want Mollom to block:
  • All fields - Anywhere in the protected forms
  • Links - In links submitted by users
  • Author name - In the submitter's username
• Matches - How user-submitted content is tested for the blocked text:
  • contains - Mollom blocks submitted content that includes your blocked text.
  • exact - Mollom blocks submitted content that exactly matches your blocked text.
• Text - Enter the text that you want Mollom to block.

Changing Mollom settings

The Settings tab lets you check and configure Mollom's global settings on your website.

• "Mollom servers verified your keys. The services are operating correctly." - This message indicates all is well with Mollom's service and your subscription.
• When Mollom is down or unreachable - Set your default strategy (block all or accept all) for dealing with user comment submissions if the Mollom service has a problem or cannot be contacted. Both strategies have advantages and disadvantages in the rare occurrence of problems with the Mollom service:
  • Block all form submissions - This keeps your site safest, but can frustrate your legitimate site visitors when they are blocked from participating in the conversation on your site.
  • Accept all form submissions - This will allow activity on your site to continue even if Mollom is having problems, but opens you up to spamming. In the worst case, this can lead to a lot of cleanup work for you if a lot of comment spam gets submitted and posted live on your site.
• Link to Mollom's privacy policy on forms protected by textual analysis - This displays a link to Mollom's default, recommended privacy policy. Mollom's terms of service require you to inform your site visitors about data privacy.
• Protect comments for new content types - Automatically adds Mollom protection to any content type you create or that is created by Drupal Gardens features or modules.
• Enable testing mode - Allows you to test whether Mollom is functioning as expected. Be sure to deselect this checkbox before your website goes live.

If you make any changes to the Settings page, be sure to click Save configuration.

Permissions

Mollom provides the following permissions for your user roles on the People > Permission tab:

• Administer Mollom-protected forms and Mollom settings
• Bypass Mollom protection on forms
• View Mollom statistics

For more information about user roles and permissions, see User roles and permissions.

Disabling Mollom protection

By default, your Drupal Gardens website uses Mollom to protect you from excessive, unwanted comments and comment spam. You can, however, disable Mollom in order to moderate comments from anonymous site visitors yourself.

To moderate visitor comments yourself instead of using Mollom:

1. In the admin menu select People and then click the Permissions tab.
2. Deselect the Skip comment approval permission checkbox for Anonymous users, and then click Save permissions.

   

   Note: You can also remove the permission from any other role on your site (except Administrator and Site maintainer) in order to manually moderate its comments.

3. Go to Configuration > Mollom spam blocking and content moderation.
4. For each form in the displayed list that you no longer want Mollom protection, click its Unprotect link and confirm your choice when prompted.

   

A site administrator must now manually read and approve unpublished visitor comments on your website before they can be published. To moderate visitor comments, go to the Content > Comments tab, and then click Unapproved comments.

Reactivating Mollom protection

If you have deactivated Mollom protection for the comments on your website, to reactivate Mollom:

1. Go to Configuration > Mollom spam blocking and content moderation.
2. Click the Add form link.
3. From the Form drop-down menu, select a form that you want to use Mollom to protect.

   

4. Click Next.
5. Configure the Mollom protection settings for the comment form, and then click Save.
6. Repeat the previous steps for each of the forms that you want Mollom to protect.
7. After you protect all of the comment forms, in the admin menu select People and then click the Permissions tab.
8. Select the Comment - Skip comment approval permission checkbox for Anonymous users, and then click Save permissions.

Using Mollom after site export

If you export your Drupal Gardens site and install it on another internet hosting service, you will need to sign up for your own Mollom-Free (or other service level) account to replace the Drupal Gardens Mollom account.