Managing comments in BlogEngine

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Aug 3

The Commentor extension for BlogEngine got a lot of positive feedback from community and will become a part of standard BlogEngine install in the next version. As work on moving it under BE umbrella just started and it's not too late to make drastic changes, I'll try to outline here how it is going to look and work and, if you have any suggestions or special demands, feel free to drop a line. Your input is always appreciated!

- First of all, here are three basic usage scenarios:

1. Unmoderated comments.
Comments can have only 2 states: approved and not approved. If unmoderated, every comment saved as approved and get straight into "inbox". Any comment in the "inbox" can be modified by admin (using pop-up form) or deleted. Comments that have children can only be deleted when all child comments deleted (selection check box is disabled).

2. Manual Moderation (moderation is on, no anti-spam service enabled).
All comments saved as unapproved to "inbox", and another tab added - "approved". You'll have to manually approve any comment only then it will go to "approved" section and become visible in the blog. You should also be able to reject approved comments (without deleting) if needed.

3. Auto-Moderated (moderation is on, anti-spam service enabled).
Once anti-spam service enabled, all rejected comments go under "spam" tab. Comments auto-approved by service go to "inbox". Admin should be able to correct auto-moderation by moving approved comments from "inbox" to "spam" and vice versa.

- Manual filter.
Manual filter available in any usage scenario, you don't have to enable moderation for it to work. Once you configured pass/block criteria, it will silently run in the background blocking or approving any incoming comments pretty much as firewall works.

- Anti-spam services.
BE will have API interface that will allow to write very simple extension to utilize services like Waegis, Akismet etc. to automatically approve/reject comments. These extensions will be available and configurable within comments configuration section.

- Comments settings.
All comments-related settings will go from general "settings" page to comments configuration section (along with new settings).

This is very rough outline and if you see any shortcomings or have ideas on how to improve design, please let us know!

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Comments

8/4/2009 10:33:40 AM #

I really like the work you've done on this extension...I am having some difficulties getting it to work, so it is too pre-mature for me to make any suggestions...Would appreciate any tips/suggestions you may have for me regarding my install...Made a comment in the BE.Net forum as well... Thanks, and I will look forward to getting things resolved on my end so I can offer input to you...

Jack |

8/4/2009 4:40:57 PM #

Hi Jack,
usually it comes down to two issues: file permissions and IIS configuration. I'd suggest this routine:

1. Go to extensions/BBCode and add new code, for example : red | span style="color:red" | span.
2. Make sure it works by using this code in the comment. This will tell you that file permissions (if using XML) are fine.
3. Turn off BBCode extension and make sure codes stopped working (should show brackets instead of red text).
4. Turn BBCode back on. If all went well and you have no issues with default extensions, try to install any simple BE extension to make sure that any extension works on your site.
Let me know how it goes, preferably by email - I don't wont to turn this into support thread

rtur.net |

8/5/2009 4:12:31 AM #

Hi,

First I would like to say that I already use your extension on my blog and it works great, so big thanks.

I think it would be useful to use the filter to block email addresses too, not just user names and IP addresses.
For example, with the recent spam tool, most spam comments that I was hit with used email addresses from gmail, yahoo, hotmail. So in a desperate situation, blocking comments from such email addresses would have killed most spam(that may have passed through Waegis).

By the way, when I delete a comment I'm asked if I want to "delte" it.

With regards,
Adrian

adrian |

8/5/2009 12:01:19 PM #

Hi, Ruslan
in the next days i'm going to release Commento Plus (based on your fantastic extension).
As already anticipated by email, I added to your extension the following features:
1 - the comment is not approved if the author does not have at least one comment already approved
2 - the comment is not approved if it contains N links (N i s user defined)
3 - the avatar of the author is shown next to each comment in the list

Cristiano |

8/5/2009 1:53:22 PM #

These are awesome features, I have not thought about it as a rules engine. I like this.

rtur.net |

8/5/2009 12:08:29 PM #

I agree that blocking email addresses will be useful. Is there anyway to link the blocking to other services from other platforms for example wordpress spam plugins so a 'general' banned list could be created?

bird feeders |

8/5/2009 1:57:14 PM #

I don't think there is a generic list, each anti-spam service maintains it's own. Let me know if I'm mistaken.

rtur.net |

8/7/2009 5:41:08 AM #

I've just came across this and think its a brilliant idea, especially with the recent surge in comment spam being directed at BE.

Many thanks for putting this together, I'm looking forward to seeing this an integral part of the main BE core!

Darren |

8/7/2009 11:14:54 AM #

Well, here you can download Commentor Plus extension:

http://www.cristianofino.net/post/Commentor-Plus-extension-per-BlogEngineNET-una-completa-difesa-contro-lo-spam-nei-commenti.aspx#english

Thanks a lot for te source code and the original idea

Cristiano |

8/8/2009 10:22:25 AM #

Came across some good suggestions here (note to myself) ;)
http://www.jankoatwarpspeed.com/post/2008/08/19/13-features-Id-like-to-see-in-BlogEngineNET.aspx

rtur.net |

8/12/2009 11:02:57 AM #

I've only installed this today, but the limited testing I've done seems to indicate that your control is working ... EXCEPT that I'm not getting a "comments" link in the administration pages ( on the screen shots on your page, you have "comments" in between "users" and "extensions" ). The only way for me to manually moderate the comments is by going to the extensions tab and clicking on edit.

I'm sure I'm doing something wrong... any suggestions?

Thanks

Filip Stanek |

8/12/2009 4:44:04 PM #

You probably talking about extension (Commentor). Screen shots taken from local install, it is not public yet. Although it is partly moved to source code on codeplex.

rtur.net |

8/12/2009 5:39:12 PM #

Ah, ok. I'll just wait for a new "official" build to be released. Still, your extension is pretty useful. Nice work!

Filip Stanek |

8/13/2009 3:49:17 PM #

This is brilliant i can't wait until the new build of be is released i am paricular impress with the screen shot

Gary |

8/19/2009 12:35:55 AM #

This is great news, congrats on the integration into the BlogEngine.NET source!

Been using Commentor for a while now and have been very happy with it.

Cheers,
AL

Al Bsharah |

8/20/2009 2:07:53 AM #

Hi Ruslan,

here's my first two requests for the new engine management comments:

1) it's possibile to add the new features I have added to commentor ?
2) it's possibile the modification not only of the comment's text, but also of the website and email address?

Thank a lot

Cristiano |

8/23/2009 9:56:46 PM #

Yes (with slight modifications) and yes.

rtur.net |

8/25/2009 3:12:59 PM #

The service offered by Waegis soon be discontinued: it is not known the date of restart :-(
This will change something in the anti-spam services used by the new comments management engine?

Cristiano |

8/25/2009 10:58:09 PM #

It is unfortunate, I was hoping we'll ship with Waegis included. I hope Keyvan will find a way to keep it going. This is exactly reason why I went supporting multiple services in the first place, so I guess I'll take it as opportunity to check out Akismet. Also make sense to look at some other alternatives, for example http://antispam.typepad.com/info/developers.html, this one almost identical in API to Akismet and should be easily portable. I think we'll be fine.

rtur.net |

10/3/2009 10:37:06 AM #