Zarathustra Suicune
Mongoose
I can't be the only one getting fed up of the advert threads that are completely unrelated to either games, is there any way to stop them?
Spam/advert junk threads
- Thread starter Zarathustra Suicune
- Start date
Greg Smith
Mongoose
I emailed Matt and LBH about it yesterday. It is dreadful.
GamerDude said:
Not sure how useful thread that is frankly. Mods probably don't get automatic message when message comes there. And when spammer arrives here it's pretty blindingly obvious anyway so mods shouldn't even need to check that. There's so much spams that it's kinda hard to NOT notice them!
Not sure how to prevent them though. The "type letters in image" verifications aren't much of help in these days. Not much you can do vs these except have moderator constantly online ready to stomp but that requires either ridiculously active moderator or lots and lots and lots of moderators to ensure SOMEBODY is always available.
This ain't only forum I read where's been RIDICULOUS amount of spam lately.
These are not bots attacking us (or doing the constant DOD attacks on our site, which we _are_ managing).
We are getting rid of these spams messages as soon as possible.
We are getting rid of these spams messages as soon as possible.
lastbesthope
Mongoose
tneva82 said:
It IS useful because it means I can check there for reports.
I DO get automatic messages when someone posts there because I subscribe to that thread.
And when a SPAM post arrives it is obvious if you see it. You want to pay me as a full time job to sit here and read EVERY thread and post looking for the blindingly obvious, fine. Otherwise, make do with the volunteer force you have. I get nothing for doing it.
LBH
(Spent the last hour and a half killing SPAM , missed my fave TV program, not that I get thanked for it, and the users are still online posting more, and as a mod I can only kill posts, not users, though I'd like to)
lastbesthope said:
Hey I'm not critisizing your work which is good. Now the subscribe thing is actually good reason for that thread but posting every thread with spam there isn't that efficient. Afterall all you need to do to find spam is click "view new posts" link top right and after spammers have arrived you have thread upon thread on there.
But peace. I wasn't implying mods are doing bad work here. No need to get so touchy!
Greg Smith
Mongoose
We do appreciate the work mods do. You really have you work cut out for you - spammers are back in force again today.
Greg Smith said:
Yes. It's not fun work, mostly repeative spam smashing when there's not that much viable ways to prevent it(automatic methods are annoying in that generally computers can get around those...) and takes real life time away from you. And you do it for free.
Seriously I do respect your effort here. Wish there was better ways to combat the spam but alas there's not that much tools available. In non-english forum you could ask new users questions in non-english language which would throw spanner for bots(at least until translation tools improve sufficiently) but this isn't viable option here. Letters in image has been cracked long time ago. Not sure if mongoose has that in register page but another forum I visit has and there comes constantly new spammers. Guess mongoose could lock the forums and require introduction message be sent before account can post but that would require more work for mods as well.
Bleh.
I moderate a phbb board where all new users have to have their posts moderater passed for the first 2 posts. We found 2 posts was enough to allow sensible (ie limited moderator) time expenditure on passing new users, but pretty much caught 99%+ of spammers - who either posted slews quickly (allowing us to kill the posts by single click 'disapproval' rather than hunting, and then a quick perma-ban on the user preventing more posts.
We are actually considering dropping to 1 post only before letting a user fly free, as so far in 2 years we have not yet had a user that didn't make it obvious in that single post - and we get a LOT of signups and are fairly prone to spammers targetting us being a disease-related support board and so meeting their search terms
The main advantage is that unapproved posts are not seen by general users, meaning if a spammer registers and piles in that the users never see the swathe of it. Its a little quicker to delete posts and ban users (as a mod I cannot delete the account but I can ban) than doing it after the event but its a little more time having to pass new users through the system...
I have no idea if the time/work balance would work for you, but it is effective...so if it helps you then thats my experience (and I appreciate the work it takes ot clean up having had to do it before myself)....
We are actually considering dropping to 1 post only before letting a user fly free, as so far in 2 years we have not yet had a user that didn't make it obvious in that single post - and we get a LOT of signups and are fairly prone to spammers targetting us being a disease-related support board and so meeting their search terms
The main advantage is that unapproved posts are not seen by general users, meaning if a spammer registers and piles in that the users never see the swathe of it. Its a little quicker to delete posts and ban users (as a mod I cannot delete the account but I can ban) than doing it after the event but its a little more time having to pass new users through the system...
I have no idea if the time/work balance would work for you, but it is effective...so if it helps you then thats my experience (and I appreciate the work it takes ot clean up having had to do it before myself)....
astronomypete
Mongoose
archon96 said:
That gives 2 very different views in my mind...
Either hacking people are breaking transistor radios...
Or
Hacking people are...
Well we wont go there shall we.. :wink:
* Takes a look around *
New measures in place... Umm, no hackers?
New measures in place... Umm, no hackers?
Not in this part of the forum, yet. But you'd better take another look in the Off Topic General Discussion section - you posted that at 14:07, but some spams in there were posted later, the most recent being 14:42...
