SPAM articles and posts

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

When one does a "new posts" search, a bunch of spam has been turning up of lately.

What to do?
1. Do you - Craig and Gav - want us to report all of it, or does that become a burden on your inboxes?
2. What can be done about it? I have been thinking about a system where a newly registered member must pass a simple fencing-question battery, and only upon answering all questions correctly does posting gets enabled. Is this doable? Is this effective? Any other (partial) solutions?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[ParryRiposte]

2. What can be done about it? I have been thinking about a system where a newly registered member must pass a simple fencing-question battery, and only upon answering all questions correctly does posting gets enabled.

What if a new fencer who's never taken any lessons wants in?

[Coldfire]

They can look up the information or wait until they know something before posting.

[keropie]

Hell, you can probably just have the answers in a faq, as long as they aren't the exact same answers you'd need for the questions. Or are posted as a picture and not text. Or something like that. When you make a real person take time to create the account, it slows down the spam, usually.

[ParryRiposte]

Make them take "The Idiot Test."

[Goldgar]

Make them take "The Idiot Test."

Those idiots don't seem to know that a square is a rectangle.

[ParryRiposte]

Those idiots don't seem to know that a square is a rectangle.

That's what I said. But I guess this is measuring the average American idiot who has no concept for first grade geometry.

[fences_like_a_lemur]

That's what I said. But I guess this is measuring the average American idiot who has no concept for first grade geometry.

That is pretty sad, for somebody who is making a quiz to see if your're an idiot or not; it sure seems like HE is the one who is in need of help...and a brain.

[Gav]

Hi!

When one does a "new posts" search, a bunch of spam has been turning up of lately.

What to do?
1. Do you - Craig and Gav - want us to report all of it, or does that become a burden on your inboxes?

Always report it. Always. In fact let me underline that - always. It's not a bad thing to do.

2. What can be done about it? I have been thinking about a system where a newly registered member must pass a simple fencing-question battery, and only upon answering all questions correctly does posting gets enabled. Is this doable? Is this effective? Any other (partial) solutions?

We've been discussing possible mods to make it difficult to post SPAM. My preference would be for a minimum post count before being allowed to post links; alongside an improvement to CAPTCHA. I believe the latter is currently being trialled. We've implemented both on the UK forum and [so far] SPAM has not managed to be entered back on to the board.

The question and answer stuff can also be implemented - in fact was recommended to me by another admin of another site. However, remember that some people come to the board to specifically to find stuff out about fencing and so may not have any idea about the correct answers to even simple [to us] questions.

What we do about SPAM is a matter which has vexed a lot of people brighter than I. It's my belief that it will remain an arms race so long as we continue to use electronic communication media.

[fences_like_a_lemur]

The question and answer stuff can also be implemented - in fact was recommended to me by another admin of another site. However, remember that some people come to the board to specifically to find stuff out about fencing and so may not have any idea about the correct answers to even simple [to us] questions.

You could always give the person the questions and then a short paper that has all of the answers in it. Then no matter what they know, whether they are experianced or not, it will take some time and discourage spamers. But it wouldn't be impossible for new people.

[Craig]

We have some things up and in trial. I've also updated the IP ban list for some of the recent spammers.

As Gav said - it will continue to be an arms race.

Craig

[Asprin]

Could you have it, with the new member having to post 10 or 20 times before they can put urls up.

[Craig]

Could you have it, with the new member having to post 10 or 20 times before they can put urls up.

The worst spammers aren't putting up URLs. They are putting up long pricelists and then an email address which doesn't get hyperlinked.

I just updated the spam scoring filter and trigger levels.

Craig

[larkmaj]

The worst spammers aren't putting up URLs. They are putting up long pricelists and then an email address which doesn't get hyperlinked.

I just updated the spam scoring filter and trigger levels.

Craig

It depends on your definition of worst. What about that thread with those Iraq pictures. That was spam, and could probably have been avoided with such a precaution, though a better number would be something like 5.

[noodle]

The worst spammers aren't putting up URLs. They are putting up long pricelists and then an email address which doesn't get hyperlinked.

I just updated the spam scoring filter and trigger levels.

Craig

or pictures.
i got caught by one of those at work....

[Craig]

I've got another one to try. It is suppossed to do a better job at filtering by keywords in posts.

Craig