Time to make signing up less spam friendly

[Creagerj]

Well as I am a night owl I noticed the freshly posted brittney spears nude thread by our newest member iiilizium. I dare say he is a spammer or something along those lines. While I have no problem with Porn, this is not a porn site and many of our members may have a problem with this. I suggest a picture with distored numbers that need to be entered into a box as a new secerity messure. Someone should probably block this user or at least delete the thread too.

 

[dexdog]

sounds like a good idea. Has anyone reported this spammer to the moderators yet?

 

[jaapv]

Yes, reported. I have a feeling some IP ranges should be blocked, unfair as this may be to legitimate users, or an e-mail response system should be used, like many other forums do.

 

[varjag]

Blocking IP ranges is usually bad idea. I would vote for CAPTCHA as already suggested.

 

[jaapv]

I know it is a bad idea, Eugene, but something should be done. Maybe Jorge should give some trusted members deletion rights to put less strain on the moderators, with the understanding they should only delete obvious spam.

 

[rover]

Good morning folks,

Thank you, there were 12 reports of that thread and I just zapped it. I am going to move this one to the feedback forum.

I know Jorge is working hard to figure out a way to slow down the amount of spammers who log on to post their junk. This was a pretty bad one though.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

I don't think this is a good idea:

Jorge cannot implement features which the off the shelf software does not offer. And even if vBulletin v3.5.4 does offer this feature it's likely to be tricky to set up and a disproportionate use of Jorge's time for a minor problem.

We can all see the one spam or so a day and ignore it for a few hours.

What Jorge may be able to do though is to set it so that new members need to have their posts approved by a modertaor before they appear on the board. Say for the first few days until the moderators know the person is genuine.

 

[jaapv]

Problem is, Jon, one has to click on a post to report it and whilst the transcribed cyrillic ones don't bother me, the Britney Spears one did. I don't have any problem with porn, after all, what did this lady have that over 3 billion other ones don't, and if anybody gets his gratification from a monitor screen that is his problem, not mine, but it does offend my esthetic sensibilities

 

[varjag]

Jappv, I see. It's just I've been once in collateral damage of IP blocking (trying to access a service from DHCP address previously used by spammer), and didn't like it 🙂

What Jorge may be able to do though is to set it so that new members need to have their posts approved by a modertaor before they appear on the board.

It will make conversations look funny, with all the delayed replies. If only required for the very fist post it would likely work though. But I still think that spending effort on setting up CAPTHCA for once is more rational than using valuable human moderator time on pre-moderating for eternity.

 

[Kim Coxon]

My 2c worth.

There may be a case for allowing more members limited rights to delete threads but this may cause other problems. Recently a member started a thread, didn't like a couple of replies and deleted the thread. It doesn't happen often but what if he didn't like a comment in a thread started by someone else? 😉

If you see a post or thread which is spam or worse porn, please hit the orange triangle and report it. This will ensure an email is sent to the mods and Jorge so it can be deleted even if all of us are "offline". Posting a message in the thread such as "mods, where are you is self defeating". From watching some of the spammers recently, they do stay online probably to watch what happens. If they see 10 or so replies, even derogatory ones, they will know that there message is being seen and this will encourage them. When we see the thread, we will take action whether or not you leave us a message in the post.

Spammers are a PITA but most know what they are doing and don't care if they upset people. Even if you block a range of IPs, most have sufficient skill to reroute to come in from a different IP out of the range and so all you achieve in doing to make life difficult for "proper" members. IMHO, one of the best ways to deter them is to make them think that their posts are not seen or at least ignored. There is no way to change the "number of views" unless you ignore anything which is from a new member and looks like spam from the title. 😉 It would also help if there were no replies regardless of how tempting it is to make a "smartass" reply. 😉

Kim

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

So, the orange triangle sends a message to the mods automatically? Thank you Kim.

 

[Kim Coxon]

If you click on the orange triangle, it will bring up a box so that you can add a comment. This is up to you but as long as you then press send, it will be sent to us.

Kim

So, the orange triangle sends a message to the mods automatically? Thank you Kim.

 

[jaapv]

Kim, I don't know if the software enables this, but would it not be a good idea to have the post marked "reported" in the main list as soon as somebody does so. It would save other members the trouble opening it to report it and reduce the number of views listed.

 

[Kim Coxon]

I don't know about the software other than Jorge is trying to deal with the problem. Part of the problem is everyone's curiosity. If I started a thread with a title of "Whatever you do, don't look at this or open it", I am sure it would get a huge number of hits in a very short space of time. 😉 Many of the spam threads which are fairly obvious, get more hits than "proper" posts. Humans are a funny lot! 🙂

Kim

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

It's also how some people title their threads:

'My new Fed 4' is a *much* better title than 'Guess what I've done' which looks very spam-like to me. So I leave it alone.

 

[Creagerj]

In reality I suppose spam is a fact of life and making a bunch of complex security messurse may ultimatly discourage new members who are serious about contributing to the forum. The thread that started this debate was pretty much done by hand as far as I could tell so even with a bunch of security messures he or she could have still posted if they were determined enough. At least the determined spammers are few and far between. And lets face it, most of the internet is either porn or religious propiganda. I have nothing agianst either of these. Granted there are better ways to use the internet. Yes it would be nice if the internet was kid/family friendly and it would be nice if we didn't have to worry about stubling accross the wrong site in front of our kids/parents/spouse/signifigant other, but hey if your with your kid it might be a good chance to give them the talk. Besides most kids know nothing about sex untill they take sex ed around their sophmore or junior year in high school, yet many engage at a younger age than that. They might not if they knew more about it. Sorry for the tangent and sorry if started any arguments by posting this thread, that was not my intention. I merly wanted to point out a problem.

 

[back alley]

it is a problem (and a pita) which we are all too familiar.

as stated before, hit the orange triangle and that post is flagged. usually rover or kim delete the post and then i ban the almost always new member.
these scum sucking parasites will always find a way to ruin the enjoyment of others.

i hold sacred the thought that there is a special place in hell for all of them.