Tarvid Engaged to Enhance Functionality and Security of Social Networking Site

In mid-December, I took over responsibility for the social networking site Crossleft.org. After three weeks of frantic activity, the site is approaching some acceptable level of sanity and security.

The site is built on the CMS (Content Management System) platform Drupal, the same one as this site. Drupal is a Swiss Army Knife with 4,000 attachable blades. The installed platform had been neglected for most of 2009, attracted several thousand mostly bogus users, fallen behind on security updates and was laden with cruft and spam.

The first task was to back up and "sandbox" the site meaning to construct a mirror on one of our own servers. Somethings one should not do in public. Updating the platform went remarkably smoothly, Murphy was looking over my shoulder. Once the core code and database were updated and minor anomalies fixed, I moved the site back to its public facing location.

I use a heavy hand on this site and only approve users I can reach with a virtual baseball bat. Crossleft is open to all. The next step was to install Captcha on registrations. Captcha is a system to separate human from scripted submissions. We used the "silly math question" form for a while eventually graduating to "images" where you strain your eyeballs and type the distorted letters and digits into the box. I eventually updated to "reCaptcha", an enhanced version which will "read" you the characters extending a bit of compassion to "old eyes".

Next, I set up a "moderation" scheme which held posts for review. This was sure to irritate regular users, so I set up a further scheme of "trusted" users who could bypass moderation. I am still working out the wrinkles. Fortunately, I snagged a volunteer to help read and judge pending posts. We quickly mark authors of reasonable posts as "trusted" and the flow is getting manageable.

Lots of links out of date and a myriad of details to go but I am beginning to relax.

Crossleft is a site for free-thinkers and open minded people but even the most Orthodox Christian should find something to stir his or her heart and mind.