Prevent spammers posting links in initial message (1 Viewer)

Jon

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I thought you meant if they have posted elsewhere here.

We can't automate some people can post a link and others not post a link if under 10 posts. You have to choose a priority. Or do you want it back as it was before I made the changes others requested?
 

Micron

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If you're talking to me, I don't think you should go by my comments as opposed to the majority because I'm not the one who has to maintain the site. I just wanted to point out the ramifications of a 10 post limit with respect to cross posting. I suppose that if a small minority of newcomers actually had the notion to declare that they've cross posted then they will post that they were not able to provide a link. Most seem to cross post without saying anything at all, let alone provide a link.

The answer might be to stop referring them to the article here which tells them to provide a link, or have a similar 'document' on this site, or just live with it.
 

Jon

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You bring up a good point Micron. Perhaps any offending notification should be edited.

What refers them to that other sites article?
 

Micron

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When someone cross posts, some of us simply post a link to the other site where we saw it. Some of us add "so-and-so, please read "and post the link along with the cross posting notification for everyone to see. That lets those who might get or are already involved know that there may be answers posted elsewhere.
See post 6 here as an example of where the link was provided by someone who called out the cross post
 

Jon

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Ok, I was not aware people were doing that. My suggestion is to not link to that other site. Keep them trapped here at Access World for an eternity.
 

Micron

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Then a similar page would be useful here, IMO. I don't suppose links to external sites help with rankings?

You may not realize it, but cross posters are a PITA. Worse case, you spend time on a problem only to find they have the same answers elsewhere and simply ignored them, or worse, everyone dropped out because the OP was less than appreciative if you know what I mean. I've seen people post the exact same question on 3 different sites, all within about 15 minutes of each other.
 

Jon

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Links to external sites have a negative impact on ranking of Access World.
 

Micron

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👁 c.
Then your own article on cross posting might help in that regard. No reason to point others elsewhere, is there (aside from not having much of a choice)?
 

Minty

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Can you extend the anti-spam measures to also stop being able to post a Poll until after 10 posts?
Been a spate of those int the last few days.
 

Jon

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Looking into it but doesn't seem so easy to stop that. No simple options in the backend, like there is for the links.
 

Gasman

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Just reported another one. :)

I think the only way to stop them dead, is for first post to be authorised, like in FB groups.
Unfortunately that puts a lot of work on the moderators, depending on the numbers joining/spamming.?
 

Gasman

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@Jon,
I cannot remember now what happened when I joined, but do new users have to confirm registration from an email sent to them.?
I know I have had to do this for a good few forums I have joined.
 

Jon

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Yes, confirmation email. But the bots auto do that nowadays anyway. I have antispam plugins too that I bought, but there is a constant battle against the bots, who find aways around these things.

For your interest, these are the last log entries:

1591191706431.png


You can see from the ID on the left, we have had 13936 spam attempts auto-stopped since late January. That is an average of about 111 attempts per day.
 

Minty

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Delays are a great anti-bot/spam feature.
When I ran my own email server I was able to instigate a 30-60 second delay on returning an EHLO response. Genuine mail servers would wait patiently, all the spambots, and infected machines would simply up sticks and bugger off. Their whole existence is based on generating thousands of attempts, so slowing them down is an excellent tool if it's not already in your armoury.

From memory, the logs showed something like 22,000 attempted deliveries in one 24 hour period that never completed.
That's a lot of spam. And we weren't an international well-known domain.
 

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