Spammers (1 Viewer)

[Galaxiom]

The persistent spammer with the mobile phones is becoming a pain. Some ideas.

Something like Captcha perhaps?

I think I read that new users cannot include links until after ten posts. If this is the case it appears not to apply to the signature so some are getting around it this way.

Email address are accepted and converted to links. Could the site be adjusted to blank out email addresses in posts from new users? If the contact information won't show they will be less likely to post.

No doubt the spammers are new users registered with web based email addresses like hotmail, yahoo etc. Perhaps those registering with these types of accounts should be subjected to a coolong off period.

Baysian filtering perhaps. There is a big difference between the spam and real posts. Phone and computer brand names would have a high spam score.

 

[Banana]

I totally agree. I also know that there are several automation and/or scripts available, as well a forum dedicated to stopping forum spam that helps administrators keep spam at bay so it need not be so manual grind as it is for our moderators.

The problem? AFAIK, there's only two administrators, and neither has posted for months. I could be wrong but I think that is one of things only an administrator can do so even though we have moderators trying to help out, it's just best they can do until the site owner (Jon) can be bothered to do something about it.

 

[dcb]

And in 5 min after your reply there are another two

I just hate the idea of limiting new users - even stripping them of HTML may not work

 

[boblarson]

Something like Captcha perhaps?

Already on the site but they can get around it by manual sign ups.

I think I read that new users cannot include links until after ten posts. If this is the case it appears not to apply to the signature so some are getting around it this way.

It is just a bluff and many don't follow it. We currently don't have the settings such to actually do that.

 

[Banana]

I'm pretty sure vBulletin allows for one to deny HTMLs in siggy... I don't know the specifics of configurations but you can guess from the Posting Rules boxes on the bottom left...

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

Email address are accepted and converted to links. Could the site be adjusted to blank out email addresses in posts from new users? If the contact information won't show they will be less likely to post.

Not sure it would help - I expect at least some of the spammers attacking here are not doing so in person, but are just unleashing a bot on a list of sites.

But Bayesian or even keyword filtering would be quite effective - if any three items from a list of phone brands appear in a single post, suspend the poster and render their contribution invisible (can always be reversed in the very rare case of false positive)

 

[Simon_MT]

Why can't trusted users just boot these into touch or a Spam section for the Moderators to remove.

Simon

 

[Galaxiom]

I think another rising problem will be perpetrators trying to post links to their site in the hope that it will boost their ranking. They try to disguise it as a genuine post.

I had one yesterday where they quoted my post and then "replied" with text lifted from another thread. The links were in their signature.

I wonder has anyone come here looking for advice to build a database that interacts with websites which they then use to inflict us and many others with spam?

 

[DCrake]

As some of you are aware I have been given Administrator status, this bourne from the fact that Mile-O was contemplating resignation, however, the additional rights that I have be afforded with do not give me the opportunity to employ some of the suggestions you are all referring to.

It appears that there are differnet types of administrators, and as expected you need to start at the bottom as the office junior before being promoted to senior administrators. Lets hope this is not long.


At present the site is managing well up till noon GMT then it tends to drop off quite rapidly and I have trouble keeping loged in due to network errors and timeouts. Perhaps this is an issue that needs immediate attention.

David

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

Why can't trusted users just boot these into touch or a Spam section for the Moderators to remove.

Simon

This is a good suggestion and worked well on another board I used to frequent - a bunch of users were set up as 'spam police' and given rights to hide posts or whole threads.

As long as the board software records who dealt with each incident, the system is reasonably immune to abuse - if an individual member of the spam police gets it wrong too often (by accident or design), just take away their spam police rights and assign them to someone else.

 

[Rich]

I find it rather strange that those in charge would rather be locking threads, moving others around etc.,etc, whilst the site is innundated with spam

 

[Vassago]

I find it rather strange that those in charge would rather be locking threads, moving others around etc.,etc, whilst the site is innundated with spam

I've been deleting the spam threads as they are reported and as I see them myself. Do you see any current spam threads or posts?

What threads are being locked? I did move a political thread from the Watercooler to Politics as it was a political themed topic from the get go. I also moved a software problem or request to the software forum, where more people are likely to see it as I know a lot of people avoid the Watercooler entirely that are more than capable of helping assist with the question.

 

[ColinEssex]

At present the site is managing well up till noon GMT then it tends to drop off quite rapidly and I have trouble keeping loged in due to network errors and timeouts.

If you log in and then go to "who's online" you will not be timed out because that section automatically refreshes.

It's also useful to see who is posting a new thread so one can be first to answer it and therefore one can boost ones ego.

Anyway, it's a good place to "park".

Col

 

[Rich]

Do you see any current spam threads or posts?

Yes, you'll have to stay here all night while we're asleep, or add Big John from down under to the mods list

 

[speakers_86]

Yes, you'll have to stay here all night while we're asleep, or add Big John from down under to the mods list

There are users from all over the world at this site. Most are from England, John is from Australia, I am from Florida, we have someone from Colorodo, I think it is Uncle Gizmo. I believe we have just about every time zone covered, of course some better than others. But it seems like we just don't have enough mods, and the mods we do have don't have enough power, like hiding spam.

 

[Vassago]

I'm from Florida and I work nights, so I can usually consistently cover everything while DCrake is not on. I'm probably working and monitering on here for the timeframe of someone in Australia. Where are the spam threads you speak of Rich? I just deleted some from the last hour.

 

[Jon]

I am looking into enabling the Akismet spam filter for the first X number of posts. I'm hoping it might help.

 

[Jon]

Just installed the Akismet anti-spam service. Can you let me know how well it works? It scans the first x number of messages someone submits and checks if its spam or not. But I am not sure how that will reduce the workload since I presume you still have to ban the spammer etc. Feedback please.

 

[Vassago]

How does it alert us?

 

[Vassago]

Just installed the Akismet anti-spam service. Can you let me know how well it works? It scans the first x number of messages someone submits and checks if its spam or not. But I am not sure how that will reduce the workload since I presume you still have to ban the spammer etc. Feedback please.

It helps a lot as far as I've seen. It places the posts/threads in a moderated queue. We still have to manually delete them and ban the user, but it stops it from appearing on the forum, which is well enough.

Is there a way to prevent users from having links in their signatures until their post count reaches something much higher, like say 25 or even 50? I don't see any reason to allow someone with a post count under 50 to have links in their signature anyway.

What about a way to prevent links in visitor messages? That seems to be one of the latest trends for spammers.