Extension:Antispam

The Anti-spam extension is a client-side application for a commercial cloud anti-spam service, cleantalk.org.

Anti-Spam service

The CleanTalk Cloud Service provides automatic and invisible protection from spam for websites. CleanTalk analyzes user behavior and evaluates the parameters of a completed form.

When installed on your website the Anti-Spam Module captures the behavior parameters of a visitor or a spambot. These parameters are being assessed and the service makes a decision — to post the visitor's message or to define it as spam and reject it. Based on such checks, the service forms its own list of email addresses used by spambots. Likewise, visitor registrations are being checked too. The service adds not only email addresses to the global blacklist but also IP addresses and domains of the websites that are promoted through spam mailout.

Spam Firewall feature

This option allows blocking spam-bots before they access MediaWiki content. CleanTalk collects spam bots activity data on websites, IP addresses of the most active spam bots are added to the Spam Firewall database. The service intercepts any HTTP(POST/GET) requests to a site and IP address it contains. If an IP address is included in CleanTalk blacklist of most spam active IPs, it will get a special page, if it is a real visitor then it proceeds to the site. That is completely transparent to the visitors. The results of Spam FireWall are logged and available in your control panel.

Real-Time Email Address Existence Validation

To validate that users sign up with their real email address, the CleanTalk server will perform email account existence checks using SMTP response.

Private blacklist/whitelist

Automatically blocks comments and registrations from your private black IP/email address list. This option helps to strengthen the protection from manual spam or block unwanted comments from users. You can add not only the certain IP addresses but also a separate subnet to your personal blacklist. The extension allows blocking or whitelisting emails for registration using wildcards, for example, "*@mail.com" will block/allow every address ending on @mail.com.

Blocking users by country

The external service can be used to automatically block comments and registrations from specific countries.

Stoplist by words

Comments that contain specific words can be forbidden.

Configuration parameters
To run extension
 * Get Access key
 * http://cleantalk.org/register?platform=mediawiki

For MediaWiki 1.32 and older
 * Type Access key in file MEDIAWIKI_ROOT/extenstions/Antispam/Antispam.php in parameter


 * Set true or false in parameter

For MediaWiki 1.33 and newer
 * Type Access key in file MEDIAWIKI_ROOT/extenstions/Antispam/extension.json in parameter


 * Set true or false in parameter

Frequently Asked Questions
No, the extension will work regardless of the protocol.
 * Should I change anything in the extension's settings or in my CleanTalk Control Panel when I switch my website from HTTP to HTTPS or vice versa?