First, the suggestion to move thread has been implemented. Second, the questions:
1. How bad was spamming before implementing the 100 posts rule?
Nightly, three or four "escort sites" and several gambling sites and a few sports book sites. Occasionally, advertising sites of a non-vulgar - but still purely commercial - nature. Bad enough for Jon to decide to implement the rule. He tuned it a couple of times before reaching 100 as the limit, because shorter limits were not very effective. I am sad to say that I started to recognize the sites by their IP addresses and name patterns. Most of the questionable sites were casino or online gaming sites. Some were sports betting sites. Some were escort sites. One particularly distasteful site involved rooster-fighting a.k.a. c.o.c.k-fighting, a truly inhumane way to treat an innocent bird.
2. How effective in preventing spamers on this site has restricting new members from posting links until they reach 100 posts ?
One man's opinion, but very effective. Since I'm one of the moderators who has to clean up after such spam, I claim FRACTIONALLY more of a valid viewpoint than average, but still only one man's viewpoint. Usually, the spam that comes in now is from someone whose account didn't raise any alarm, but their innocuous member name turned out to be related to a business looking for free advertising.
3. Is a maintained list of keywords used for always preventing posts and links?
No. It is "Has a Link" or "Has No Link." No keywords involved.
4. Have any members spammed after reaching 100 posts?
A couple of older accounts appear to have been hacked, leading to mostly "escort site" spam. Otherwise, not very many that I can recall.
5. Are all files scrutinized before being uploaded to this site?
I think there are antiviral scans but otherwise, no. Instead, we have some threads that are locked and require moderator approval - for which the expectation is manual review of the submission. Other non-moderated threads, not so much scrutiny.
6. Have any members been identified as bots?
Again, a narrow viewpoint. I have not personally identified any bots, but the moderators don't usually announce such things - they just whack the account. On the other hand, we generally know spam when we see it and, to be honest, don't CARE whether it was or wasn't a bot. In either case, it becomes history.
Other moderators, feel free to respond to post #94 if the spirit moves you.
wow, I guess it was easier to implement the unattended 100 posts rule versus having to manually block each spam site. Does Xenforo, by default, allow adjusting post count thresholds for blocking URL's? Can custom rules be created?
