plugin wanted: ban specific domain referrals

richards1052 – you have posted repeatedly to the forums on this subject, and you have been given top advice.
What steps have you taken to reduce this ?
Forced comment registration ?

Got a blog ? Get used to junk like this. It’s the way it is.

And no you would not – if I was one of these people I simply paste the url into a new tab, and I’d get through.
Block my IP ? Not a problem, I’ll anonymise.
Make things harder for me ? I’ll just be worse when I do get through.

I second podz remarks. Get used to it, it you want a public presence (ie on the web) you will continue to have this problem.

The ONLY way around it is forced comment registration. And with that a determined commenter will just register under various names and IP’s, so whats the point.

You have chosen to write about what many consider a controversial topic and invites just the type of behavior you dislike.

GET USED TO IT, and quit posting the same problem over and over and over.

I will add that there appears to be a bot that can register now on blogs. I’ve only been hit once but it derived from the same source that created a bot which registered on my vb forum.

Good reason not to have a “register link” displayed isn’t it?

If someone you know needs to register all they have to do is send a request via Email and the new user can be added on the backend vice allowing an open door for everyone.

You really only have a few choices with a blog: completely private, for yourself and perhaps a few carefully chosen others; obfuscated public, where you require registration and try not to litter the airwaves with pings/trackbacks etc. so that you’re under the radar as it were; or open public – which is what you’ve got, richards1052.

You seem to want to have your cake and eat it to: you want to be able to have a forum for your [very controversial] blog content, you want it public [being an exhibitionist apparently], but you don’t want to deal with the fallout – you want someone to cover your ass for you by not allowing others’ opposing [sometimes VIOLENTLY opposing] views to be posted.

Since it appears that you have less need for comments than you do for setting out your own personal agenda through your posts, the one possibly viable suggestion I have for you is that you keep your blog publicly readable [since you seem to have that need to express your agenda], but allow no comments at all from the public.

Truthfully, registration would seem to be the one way for comments to appear with less of the problem you so abhor; and really there’s no reason not to use it [though you would still HAVE a problem occasionally, from someone who registed – yep, lots of ways to do that legit].

If commenters are so insistent on anonymity, their comments would seem to be relatively valueless anyway. If you continue to insist on open posting of comments, then you will simply have to deal with the fallout, and stop whining when it happens as it will over and over. You can’t do one way controversy, you know [in fact, the word itself indicates opposition] – or perhaps you haven’t tumbled to that fact yet….

So much hostility, peevishness and mistaken notions fr. so many!

I merely posted a request for a plugin author to consider writing something that would ban a domain referral & instead of getting any substantive replies, I get ‘piled on’ by the Nyet set.

First, Podz, you have suggested I consider forced comment registration in another thread & I think I answered you there that this would be my option of last resort since I did not want to squelch comments (as I fear this would do). If the solution isn’t optimal for me, why do you criticize me for not accepting it & for seeking other options?

Second, again Podz, I’m not trying to ban YOU, who know how to evade these defenses. I’m trying to ban some jerk who, if my defense works, will get an error pg. & perhaps not be able to figure out how to work around the defense. I don’t expect defenses to be ironclad. I expect them to throw a roadblock in the way. I want the jerks to have to work that much harder to make mischief.

GET USED TO IT, and quit posting the same problem over and over and over.

Marc, we’re getting peevish now aren’t we? You’ve posted similarly peevishly at other threads of mine before. Don’t you have anything better to do?

And Vkaryl calls my blog “very controversial.” By whose standards? By the standards of the jerks who write abusive comments? And you accept their standards as accurate? Or am I controversial by YOUR standards? In any case, my blog is only controversial to a very small fraction of the blog universe, those who are posting abusive comments.

You call me “an exhibitionist” for having a public blog. That’s a bit over the top isn’t it? And again, no, I’m not opposed to “opposing comments” of which there are many on my blog. I’m opposed to outrageous, insulting, abusive comments. You apparently don’t understand the difference.

it appears that you have less need for comments than you do for setting out your own personal agenda through your posts

Another complete misunderstanding of my blog’s goals. I value both comments (even those disagreeing w. me) AND setting out my own “agenda” (how loaded a term). And why would you ever think I’d want a blog completely closed to all comments? Not at all. It defeats the whole purpose of blogging which is to have a 2 way conversation with the world.

I guess “whining” depends on whose ox is gored, doesn’t it? If it were yours and you asked for help in controlling unwanted commenters at your blog I’d like to think I would be less dismissive and a little more sympathetic. But hey, that’s me.

I give up.

I did that along time ago podz. Here’s why:

Marc, we’re getting peevish now aren’t we? You’ve posted similarly peevishly at other threads of mine before. Don’t you have anything better to do?

Lets not talk “Peevish,” 1052 lets talk being a RPITA. I have lots of better things to do. Unfortunately I made the mistake of attempting to help you on many occasions. Most notably avatars and a sidebar issue. On both occasions you were given specific, make that very specific instructions including exact codeing.

What I and others that jumped in to help explain got was constant posts in the threads by you saying “oh whoa is me, that didn’t work,” and a comment that you well…, just “changed this” or “changed that” from what your were told.

Well duh…!

Then to top it all off, then after I ignored your pleas for more help (because I DO have better things to do) you tracked down my Email address (admittedly easy via one of my blogs) and pounded my inbox with the same “oh whoa is me” plea for help.

Your address promptly got tossed in the spam filter, both onsite and in my Email client.

And BTW your blogs topic IS controversial, it is a highly charged issue for many, if you fail to see that your as blind to the ways of the world as you are to deciphering valid and consistent help given here.

Marc: I wish you DID give up. But the fact that you follow my threads & leave snotty posts like the 2 above indicates that you must have lots of time to waste & also your emotional maturity.

I’ve written this to you before but you’ve entirely ignored me…stop responding to my posts with snottiness (better yet just leave them alone entirely) or I will feel free to do in yr threads what you do in mine.

Whether or not my blog is controversial, which despite the words of blockheads like you, it is not, is beside the point. No one who owns a blog should feel that part of their burden is to be hounded & harrassed by abusive comments. I’m seeking ways to control that. All the naysayers above seem to believe it’s part of our lot in life to be abused by some of our visitors. I say it doesn’t have to be that way.

<?php
/* Add plugin header stuff */

$blocked_domains[] = ‘example.com’;
$blocked_domains[] = ‘example.net’;

function bounce_losers() {
if(isset($_SERVER[‘HTTP_REFERER’])) {
$referring_domain = parse_url($_SERVER[‘HTTP_REFERER’]);
$referring_domain = $referring_domain[‘host’];
if(in_array($referring_domain, $blocked_domains)) {
header(“Location: “.$_SERVER[‘HTTP_REFERER’]);
die();
}
}
}

add_action(‘init’, ‘bounce_losers’);
?>

“I’m seeking ways to control that.”

And you have been given EVERY possible way to do just that long before this thread was started. Don’t think so? These four were all within a 48 hour period.

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/41366
https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/41251
https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/41519
https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/40687

Plus the other four including this one that are on the very same topic.

Here’s a clue for ya. If podz says “I give up” it says a lot. He has spent more time and effort helping all of us here than most, if not all the volunteers, that attempt to help. Take that for what it’s worth.

BTW, “I will feel free to do in yr threads what you do in mine.”. Have at it pal, they are far and few in between. I have enough common sense to go to the source of a troublesome plugin or the codex, not constantly pound this forum with the same thing over and over.

My last comment on this issue:
richards1052 – I think you want free and open commenting, but with code in the background that bans those commenters that you feel deserve it (NOTE: ‘you feel‘ – that is IMPOSSIBLE to determine using code). So what you want is commenting in line with what you think comments about your words should say. But importantly, you want to be able to say “I have open comments! Anyone can disagree with what I say! Look – you don’t have to register!!” while in the background sits your ‘silent assassin’ code that ‘people with nothing to fear’ will never see – so to them you are indeed operating a ‘commenting free-for-all’
But you wouldn’t be would you ?
You would be practising censorship, but hidden.
So when you do that it’s okay, but what if that approach was taken to you ? What if a country or state did that it – would you praise them for their efficiency or harangue them for their apparent hypocrisy ?

Comments can be deleted with a single click – is that really too much effort ?

You know what the tools are, I suggest you use them.
(and I meant it about my last comment on this. I will not reply)

One of the best things about WordPress is the the way it handles comment moderation. On TypePad I would wake up in the morning and find that I had comment spam on dozens of posts and have to delete them one by one.

With WordPress, unless I’ve specifically approved a comment by a person before, their comments go to moderation and require my approval before getting posted. I can flag it as spam or just delete it and it never sees the light of day.

So while I can appreciate that you don’t like comments that you consider offensive, I’m not sure why, given all the comment handling features in WordPress, why they’re a problem, unless you just don’t want to have to read them in the first place.

Under options/discussion there’s a section that should put comments from any offending URL into moderation where it can be deleted before it posts. “When a comment contains any of these words in its content, name, URI, e-mail, or IP, hold it in the moderation queue…”

So I’m not really sure what the problem is here. As soon as you read the first offending sentence you just hit delete.

Another possibility is that your host has some way to ban certain domains. The stats I get from Dreamhost show literally hundreds of hits on my blog every day from domains with words like texas-holdem, poker, casino etc, in them yet none of those domains has ever successfully left any spam on my blog. These spammers are always at the top of the list of referring domains, but they never get through. So there might be something you can try at the host level.

Name calling doesn’t solve problems. If anyone calls anyone else a name, this thread will be closed.

Whether your blog is controversial is neither here nor there. The folks on these forums have tried to help. Everyone needs to accept the fact that the solutions we want may be beyond the capacity of those providing them.

Firas posted example code. richards1052, please give us the courtesy of a response as to whether this code solves your problem. You may do so by selecting “Resolved” for this topic at the very top of the page. A “thank you” to Firas would also go a long way.

Hi Richard,
I ran across this https://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/ref-karma/ and it seems that it is what you need. You can look at refferers at anytime and decide if you want to block them or not take a look and if it isn’t what you need let me know or if you need any help, I am pretty decent with’hacking’ together php scripts…but I thought you might want to take a look at this.

Just found this one https://wp-plugins.net/plugin/noreferer/ looks even easier to use no configuration needed or so it says.

Dawzz posted this reply to a thread I created at the HostDime.com forum. I note his positive willingness to help and to provide answers to the question I posed. He managed to find not one, but 2 plugins to address my need. I implemented one of them & it does precisely what I wanted.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if this had been the answer posted here instead of the shower of negativity posted instead (excluding Firas of course)?

So to all above who say I’m “whining” or that getting abusive comments is the cross you bear for being controversial & one should just suck it up & accept it, I say it doesn’t have to be that way.

Another problem I have with this approach is that I think it misunderstands the nature of WP. You get a basic installation but then you get a world of plugins to help optimize your environment. If you have a need but can’t find a plugin to address it, what’s wrong with asking if there is one or asking if someone would consider writing one? In other settings, that’s considered innovation, entreneurship & optimizing a product. Here for some it’s considered something negative.

Podz: Your comments about censorship in my comments section is totally beside the point. Who says a blog environment has to absolute democracy (or “chaos” depending on your attitude)? My blog is not a public square where everyone has the right to say what they wish. My blog is my own turf and a reflection of me. Who says that I need to see published in my blog comments which accuse me of “sexually mutilating” my son because I gave him a Jewish ritual circumcision (that is but one example of many & I won’t bore you w. others)? All I was seeking in this thread was to figure out a way to ban visitors fr. referring domains who had a history of posting comments similar to this (others coming fr. the same domain that brought the above commenter were posting similar comments). Inherent in your approach seems to be a belief that a certain lack of control must be accepted by all who blog. You just have to grit & bear the abuse. What’s wrong with having a diff. approach which exercises an element of control w/o totally stifling spontaneity?

Skippy: I only used that term towards Marc because he has a history of leaving snotty comments in my threads here. I know using that word was a mistake & I’ve not done anything before here like that. This makes 4 dismissive comments by my count & if you’d like links to see his history in regards to my threads I’d be only too happy to oblige. And this is the 2nd time in a thread in which I’ve asked him to desist fr. leaving negative comments in threads I originate.

And you needn’t ask me to say thank you to Firas. If you followed other threads here in which members have been helpful to me you would see that I know how to be thankful. If I recall correctly, I’ve prob. thanked you in the past for help. If you mistake my attempt to defend or explain myself here for a generally uncivil person, you do not realize that I recognize and appreciate helpfulness.

So thank you Firas for taking the time to come up w. that solution. I hope it will help someone who comes to this thread looking to resolve the type of problem I faced. And I hope the other 2 plugins Dawzz turned me onto will likewise be helpful.

I will also mark the thread resolved & hope all of us can move on to other productive ventures.