Peenie Wallie: CAPTCHA for MovableType 3.2

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August 17, 2007

CAPTCHA for MovableType 3.2

The spam on my website is getting to be such a problem that I have to do something.

Six Apart has a guide to MovableType comment spam. Plus, this post talks about fighting blog spam in MovableType as well.

Now, Jay Allen apparently has a new plugin called Comment Challenge, and he wants me to get rid of the MT-Blacklist plugin.

So, OK. FIrst of all, I'll remove my MT-Blacklist plugin. Hmmm. After looking around a bit, I see that I'm not using that plugin any more anyway. Just some vestigial folders floating around out there in odd places. So, I just deleted the old MT-Blacklist folder(s). Done.

Now, the Comment Challenge Plugin requires the following:

Movable Type 3.2 or higher or Movable Type Enterprise
Ability to install plugins
Permission to configure a blog and edit its templates
A seething hatred of spam

Ok. Check. Check. Check. Check.

Directions for downloading and installing Comment Challenge.

So, I copied in the files as described in the directions.
Then, I inserted the <$MTCommentChallenge$> tag into my Individual Entry Archive. (Templates » Archives » Individual Entry Archive).

Then, I rebuilt all of my individual archives.

Now, when I go to MovableType, Plugins, I do see CommentChallenge listed there, and it says it is "Enabled", but I don't see the "Settings" link that is described in the documentation.

OK. Now I see the problem. I was in the wrong place: I was in "Main Menu > System Overview > Plugins". I needed to go to "Main Menu > Peenie Wallie > Plugin Settings".

So, I set the CommentChallenge Settings and rebuilt all of my individual archives (again).

It was working, but I had never put the <$MTCommentChallenge$> into my Comment Preview template, because the template was apparently old or obsolete. It used the MTCommentFields tag, which Jay pointed out wouldn't work. So, I refreshed the Comment Preview Template, as Jay described:

"You can always check by refreshing your indiv archive template (select template, pull down the itemset action ("More actions") dropdown and choose Refresh template(s... "

Then, with the updated Comments Preview template, I was able to put the <$MTCommentChallenge$> tag into the template, and it seems to be working now.

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