php –

Quick Tip: Stop Forum Spam

Brooke. — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 21:38:00 +0000

Akismet is a great tool for fighting spam, however due to licensing and call limits I was looking to decrease the number of calls to Akismet. In my search for alternatives I stumbled upon Stop Forum Spam. For a free project, I have been impressed with their accuracy. While primary focused on, well forums, they have an API.

Other alternatives exist but for now I have been happy with the combination of Aksimet and Stop Form Spam combined with judicial word and IP blocks when needed.

Spam Strategy

While my exact spam strategy is somewhat depending on the content type. I often use a PHP library for Akismet in combination with a word block and/or IP block list.

For my most recent project the strategy looked like this:

First check the input against an IP list. While IP blocks are a cat and mouse game, I use it to block known spammers. I’m talking about IPs that have made more than five known spam attempts in the last fourteen days get blocked for two weeks.
Next, check the content against a known word block list. Again this is the low hanging fruit for the crypto and link spammers who often uses the same words or phrases in their spam.
Once content passes both of those, the data is checked against the Stop Forum Spam database.
Finally, if that passes, then check the content with Akismet.

I found this catches about 98% of spam. All entries require manual approval, but catching spam means less moderation.

PHP Example code

Here is an example using the Stop Forum Spam API with Symfony HTTP Client. A similar method should be possible with any Request package. For Akismet I’m using the Omines Akismet Package as I can use the same Request package.

One quirk of the API is that the blocklists sets the frequency field to 255, and the lastseen date to the current time (UTC). I am being somewhat conservative here and checking if the lastseen is within the last hour.

/**
     * Check IP / email / username against Stop ForumSpam database
     *
     * @param string | null $ip IP address to check
     * @param string | null $email Email to check
     * @param string | null $username Username to check
     * @param int $threshold Confidence threshold(0 - 100, default: 75)
     * @param bool $checkTor include TOR exit nodes in spam detection(default: false)
     * @param bool $checkBlacklist include blacklisted entries(default: true)
     * @return bool | string false if clean, or string with reason if spam detected('confidence' | 'tor' | 'blacklist') {
     */
    private static function stopForumSpamLookup($ip = null, $email = null, $username = null, $threshold = 75, $checkTor = true, $checkBlacklist = true)
    {
        $client = HttpClient::create();

        $params = ['json' => '1', 'confidence' => '1'];

        if ($checkTor) {
            $params['badtorexit'] = '1';
        }
        if ($checkBlacklist) {
            $params['nobaduser'] = '0';
        }

        if ($ip) {
            $params['ip'] = $ip;
        }
        if ($email) {
            $params['email'] = $email;
        }
        if ($username) {
            $params['username'] = $username;
        }

        try {
            $response = $client->request('GET', 'http://api.stopforumspam.org/api', [
                'query' => $params
            ]);

            $data = json_decode($response->getContent(), true);

            if (!isset($data['success']) || $data['success'] != 1) {
                return false;
            }

            foreach (['ip', 'email', 'username'] as $field) {
                if (isset($data[$field]) && $data[$field]['appears'] == 1) {
                    if ($checkBlacklist && isset($data[$field]['frequency']) && $data[$field]['frequency'] == 255 && isset($data[$field]['lastseen'])) {
                        $lastSeen = strtotime($data[$field]['lastseen']);
                        $hourAgo = time() - 3600;
                        if ($lastSeen >= $hourAgo) {
                            return 'sfs_blacklist';
                        }
                    }

                    if ($checkTor && $field === 'ip' && isset($data[$field]['torexit']) && $data[$field]['torexit'] == 1) {
                        return 'sfs_tor';
                    }

                    if (isset($data[$field]['confidence']) && $data[$field]['confidence'] >= $threshold) {
                        return 'sfs_confidence';
                    }
                }
            }

            return false;
        } catch (Exception $e) {
            return false;
        }
    }

Changing the World S3 image generator

Brooke. — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 22:17:47 +0000

Today on my personal blog I wrote a blog post about how I’m going to change the world. At the bottom of the post it contains this image:

Which when clicked links to http://changetheworld.broo.ke (offline).

Today I wanted to talk a bit about how that sub-domain image generator works, because frankly I think it’s pretty cool.

All the images are being stored on Amazon S3 storage meaning that image display should be faster and better than my local host. I’m also using a resize script to generate image sizes based on the users need.

So basically it works like this:

The user types in the image size they would like and hits submit
We check to see if the size is within a given range (between 100 and 1000 and divisible by 10) and if so we proceed
Next, we check if the image is already on the server, If so we grab it, if not we create it.
If the image is created it is done using an image resize script then uploaded to amazon S3
We display a link to the new image and a link to it in the read-only text box.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

If anyone has any comments or would like the code please contact me or leave a comment below

Simple Portfolio Widget

Brooke. — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 01:58:12 +0000

Hi, I just wrote a simple portfolio widget and thought I would share. This code uses Justin Tadlock’s get_the_image plugin and custom widget code to display the featured image based on tag or post type.

Just drop this into your functions.php or create a plugin to see it in action

if ( function_exists( 'add_image_size' ) ) {
add_image_size( 'sidebar-thumb', 75,75,true   );

}
class PortfolioWidget extends WP_Widget
{
function PortfolioWidget()
{
$widget_ops = array('classname' => 'PortfolioWidget', 'description' => 'Displays a list of thumbnails for portfolio pieces in the sidebar' );
$this->WP_Widget('PortfolioWidget', 'Portfolio Thumbnails', $widget_ops);
}

function form($instance)
{
$instance = wp_parse_args( (array) $instance, array( 'title' => '','tags' => '', 'post_type' => '' ) );

$title = $instance['title'];
$tags = $instance['tags'];
$post_type = $instance['post_type'];
?>

Title: 
Tags: 
Post Types: 
 $post_type, 'tag_id' => $tags  ) );
while ( $query->have_posts() ) : $query->the_post();
echo get_the_image( array( 'meta_key' => 'Thumbnail','size' => 'sidebar-thumb') );
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
echo $after_widget;
}

}

Let me know your thoughts or if you have any questions. If there is a large intrest I may post a complete write up and example with images.

Simple SOPA Blackout Plugin

Brooke. — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 08:01:16 +0000

I just wrote a simple plugin to blackout your site on January 18th for the SOPA Blackout day. Check it out on the project page.

Random Greeting in PHP

Brooke. — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:54:46 +0000

I was searching for a php list of greetings but couldn’t find one so I made my own. Thought this may be helpful to someone else looking for a list. Here is how to show a random greeting in php. Much like the flickr welcome page.


//random array function you can use or write your own
function randomArrayVar($array)
{
if (!is_array($array)){
return $array;
}
return $array[array_rand($array)];
}

//list of grettings as arary

$greeting= array(
"aloha"=>"Aloha",
"ahoy"=>"Ahoy",
"bonjour"=>"Bonjour",
"gday"=>"G'day",
"hello"=>"Hello",
"hey"=>"Hey",
"hi"=>"Hi",
"hola"=>"Hola",
"howdy"=>"Howdy",
"rawr"=>"Rawr",
"salutations"=>"Salutations",
"sup"=>"Sup",
"whatsup"=>"What's up",
"yo"=>"Yo");

//echo greeting
echo (randomArrayVar($greeting));

Hope it’s helpful to someone. If you have an additions please leave them in the comments below.

MobileESP for WP 1.2 Updated

Brooke. — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:06:46 +0000

I just wanted to write a quick post to let you know that MobileESP for WordPress version 1.2 has been released. This release contains the latest version of the MobileESP library as well as a bugfix for the full site url link bug which was requiring clicking on the link twice. Get the latest version from the WordPress.org Plugin repo or update the plugin from your dashboard.

April Fools Plugin: Cornify for WordPress Released

Brooke. — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 21:09:56 +0000

In case you missed it I decided to do a small April Fools prank this year. I came across cornify.com and liked the way it worked. I thought it would be funny to have the unicorns pop up if the user was inactive on the site for longer than a few seconds. So I got to hacking the script and came up with a simple plugin Cornify for WordPress. This is a simple WordPress plugin for the self hosted WordPress blog that will show unicorns to the inactive user. There isn’t a control panel but if you read the readme you do have a few options for modifying the script.

Without further ado here is a screenshot:

Get the plugin today!

MobileESP for WP Updated

Brooke. — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 19:35:05 +0000

I just released version 1.1 of MobileESP for WordPress this should fix any problems people were having with iPhone and Android devices not forwarding correctly. I also updated the MobileESP class and minified the source which made it half the size.

As always, if you have any problems please report them in the forums tagging them with at least ‘mobileesp-for-wordpress’

WPBook 2.0.10 BETA release

Brooke. — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 22:54:44 +0000

Today I am uploading a new beta version of WPBook. This version needs some testing before being forked into core so if you download it and have any problems let me know.

You can download the version here

New in this Features version:

Facebook Avatars – if you have the gravtar setting on and the visiter leaves a comment from Facebook (or leaves their Facebook profile url in the url field) you’ll see their Facebook Profile picture instead of their default gravtar. This is true for both your parent blog (outside of Facebook) and the app view (inside of Facebook)

New Admin Layout – The WP-Dashboard admin page has been completely redesigned and organized into three categories: required, Streaming and Facebook App View. The “advanced settings” have been removed and integrated into the appropriate place in the settings. Tooltips have also been removed. Hopefully this layout is easier to use. Thanks to Ozh’s YOURLS: WordPress to Twitter for the inspiration and some of the code that powers the admin interface and the Tango Project for the expand/collapse icons.

Bug Fixes:

The default of “post to facebook” is now set to true

The link in set_permissons=true now links to WPbook.net instead of the old instructions folder in your install.

Other Notes:

Folder Cleanup, the client and cron file includes have been moved to there own “include” folder

The Facebook Tab view has been moved to it’s own folder inside the wpbook/theme folder

Please let me know any feedback you may have on this build.

YOURL’s WordPress Plugin Update for 3.0

Brooke. — Tue, 11 May 2010 07:54:29 +0000

I’ve been using YOURLS to host my own shortlink site for quite some time. I recently found the YOURL’s WordPress to Twitter Plugin. This plugin is great however the, get_shortlink function added to WP 3.0 as well as the latest version of WordPress.com Stats plugin caused some small usability issues. Such as the “Get Shortlink” button showing up twice.

My solution? Make it so when you click on the “Get Shortlink” button it gets the YOURLS shorlink instead of the wp.me one. This required the following changes that I’m hoping OZH will adopt or modify.

Remove the following from inc/options.php (Lines 427-428)

$('#edit-slug-box').append('yourls-shorturl-button">Get Short URL');
$('#yourls-shorturl-button a').css('border-color','#bbf');

Next add the following functions to either inc/core.php or plugin.php

//the following two functions are from WordPress.com Stats Plugin by Andy Skelton Thanks Andy
//shortlink url for WP <= 2.9
function wp_ozh_yourls_get_shortlink_html($html) {
$url = wp_ozh_yourls_geturl($id);
$html .= '' . __('Get Shortlink') . '';
return $html;
}

The final step is to modify the plugin.php file to change the renamed wpme functions and update for WP 3.0

// WP 2.9/3.0 & wp.me play nice together
add_action('plugins_loaded', 'wp_ozh_yourls_wpme' );
function wp_ozh_yourls_wpme() {
if( ! function_exists('wp_get_shortlink') ) {
// Remove these only for WP < 3.0.
remove_action('wp_head', 'wpme_shortlink_wp_head');
remove_action('wp', 'wpme_shortlink_header');
//Add shortlink URL html
add_filter( 'get_sample_permalink_html', 'wp_ozh_yourls_get_shortlink_html');
} else {
// Add a shortlink handler for WP >= 3.0.
add_filter( 'get_shortlink', 'wp_ozh_yourls_raw_url');
}
}

That should do the trick and be backwards compatible!