The Bad words module can be used as a filter for unwanted input from website users. This can be anything from rude language to spam or links to illegal content, basically anything that is detectable by presence of some keyword in input text.

 

The Bad words module is capable of filtering input submitted via the following modules:

 

•Forums - filters forum posts

•Blogs - filters blog comments

•Messaging - filters messages sent via the module

•Message boards - filters messages posted on particular boards

 

For the module to work, you first need to enable it as described in Developer's Guide -> Modules -> Bad words -> Enabling the module. Filtering is then performed based on keywords - so called bad words - defined by site administrators in CMS Desk -> Administration -> Bad words. The procedure of defining bad words is described in the Defining a bad word topic in the same chapter of the Developer's Guide.

 

If a user inputs some text containing one or more of these words, a predefined action is performed. Available actions range from removing the word, replacing it with a pre-defined string or just reporting abuse to website administrators by means of the Abuse report module. All actions and their effects are described in the Possible actions topic.

 

By default, input from all users except global administrators is filtered. However, you may grant the Use bad words permission to some roles, which will disable filtering of input submitted by its members. More information on this option can be found in the Security topic.

 

The Bad words internals and API sub-chapter provides information about the database tables and classes used by the module, as well as examples of how bad words can be managed and bad word checks performed using Kentico CMS API.

 

The Bad words module is just one of the modules which can help you deal with unwanted user input. Besides detecting unwanted input based on keywords, you may also let your site visitors report such content via the Abuse report module. The last resort in dealing with unwanted content may be blocking access to your site from a certain IP address. This can be achieved using the Banned IPs module.