Cutting down on the spam

[thebookiesoffers]

Any chance we can make it that new sign ups have to be validated by a mod before they can post? Im sick of seeing spam threads for Air Jordon's and stuff which at a guess is done by spam bots?

[Anthony]

The increase in spam this week has not gone unnoticed.

We do have plug-ins in place to help combat spam at the registration level and for the most part they have been effective. The majority of bots are flagged before posting. We are looking at what modifications can be done to increase our filtering process.

We strive to remove spam in a timely manner and greatly appreciate when members report spam posts.

Thanks for your comments.

[universal4]

Spam-o-matic helps some and I have been on that almost every morning.....

Forcing a validation is easily fooled anyway since this would likely only delay the postings a day or so and they would still show....then be banned/spam-o-matic'ed anyway....

Rick
Universal4

[rak]

On a few other forums I noticed that post as a normal affiliate for 10 or so posts, and than bam - they become spammers.

Validation does suck as well, most of these forum spam software, allow you to plug in a captcha validation service, or hire cheap labour to create those spam accounts.

[BHL]

On a few other forums I noticed that post as a normal affiliate for 10 or so posts, and than bam - they become spammers.

Validation does suck as well, most of these forum spam software, allow you to plug in a captcha validation service, or hire cheap labour to create those spam accounts.

You could add a rule though where if the member hasn't made 10 posts yet, all his posts need to be reviewed before they are placed. Even if spammers get through the registration process, they will most probably give up when they notice their posts have to be reviewed before they are published.

But then there's always a thin line between adding more rules and scaring away quality members.
Like this forum would do well if there was a rule of minimum post size - probably because of the new top posters links - there are a lot of people posting extremely short messages or multiple short ones in quick succession on the same topic, even though they can just as easily edit the first message and add text there. But that would probably make it less fun for all of us, and add way too much work for the moderators.

[universal4]

We have always felt the least amount of rules on posting here for ALL members was the best way.

Finding the balance between the least of amount of restrictions and controlling the spammers has always been something that we have to revisit every year or 2.....

There are so many times where shorter responses etc are valid and do in fact add to the discussions, and some newbies will often post in such a manner until they become more comfortable and more seasoned.

Also, for some members where English is not their native language, the translated posts are sometimes shorter as it is a little less burden for them to make shorter posts to get their point accross.

The mods here watch patterns of nothing but short posts and are aware of that and discuss them often.

Rick
Universal4

[oc+]

Had a forum a long time ago and the biggest pain in the arse was managing the spammers, even putting a block on their IP would only be temporary as they would be back from another IP.

We also noticed at the time that the spammers joined up, but would not post for a few days, probably joining other forums in one batch then trying their luck the next.

We also found that those with short answers to threads, like "I agree" and "Yes, this is a good idea" always led to spam.

It's crazy really as to how much effort they put in, but then it must be working somehow otherwise they would have worked it out by now, may be wrong, not sure. Either way, running a forum and keeping on top of the spamulites is, and probably always will be, hard and annoying work.