Set up spam filters for your e-mail question form

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In the QuestionPoint Administration module, you can set up spam filters for your library's QuestionPoint e-mail question form. Spam filters reduce the amount of spam added to your QuestionPoint account.

• Procedure
• Available filters

Procedure

To set up spam filters:

1. Go to the Spam Filter page. (Administration > Institution > Forms > Spam Filter)
2. Enter settings for the filters that you want to use and click Save.

Available filters

The following spam filters are available on the Spam Filter page:

• Use Captcha
• Validate Referrer URL
• Our Valid Referrer URLs

Use Captcha

If you select Yes for Use Captcha:

• The patron sees an additional page after he or she submits a question. The page asks the patron to type the letters shown in a distorted picture. The page includes links that the patron can click to try another set of letters, hear the letters read, or view online help.
• If the patron types the letters correctly and clicks Submit, QuestionPoint accepts the patron's question and displays a thank-you page.
• If the patron types the letters incorrectly and clicks Submit, QuestionPoint redisplays the page with a new set of letters and a note indicating that the letters typed did not match the picture.
• The patron must type the letters correctly before QuestionPoint accepts the question.
• If the question is spam, there will be no patron to type the letters correctly so QuestionPoint will not accept the question.

If you select No for Use Captcha:

• QuestionPoint does not use this filter.

For background information, see the Wikipedia article about CAPTCHA.

Validate Referrer URL

If you select Yes for Validate Referrer URL:

• QuestionPoint blocks any questions it receives for your library that contain no Referrer URL. Spam questions sometimes contain no Referrer URL. Questions submitted on your e-mail question form contain the form's URL as the Referrer URL.
• QuestionPoint also uses the Our Valid Referrer URLs filter if you added URLs for that filter.

If you select No for Validate Referrer URL:

• QuestionPoint does not use this filter or the Our Valid Referrer URLs filter.

Our Valid Referrer URLs

This spam filter validates the Referrer URL of each submitted e-mail question form to see if it matches a Referrer URL that you specified.

Note: You do not need to specify the URLs of e-mail question forms created using the QuestionPoint Forms Manager and hosted by OCLC.

If you add one or more URLs for Our Valid Referrer URLs and you select Yes for Validate Referrer URL:

• QuestionPoint blocks any questions it receives for your library that contain no Referrer URL or that contain a Referrer URL that is not one of the URLs you added.

If you add one or more URLs but you select No for Validate Referrer URL:

• QuestionPoint saves the URLs for possible later use but does not use this filter or the Validate Referrer URL filter.

You can add an entire URL or you can add the beginning of the URL followed by the * wildcard character.

For example, if the entire URL of your e-mail question form is:

• http://www.heartlandpublic.org/reference/forms/email.html

You could add the entire URL, or you could add:

• http://www.heartlandpublic.org*