New anti-spam tools coming

Chris
I ended up doing the same thing on a site I run. It was actually less work approving the few new members per week than trying to catch and remove 3 times as much SPAM. A one time short delay to sign up is a small investment for a. Spam free board.

[mcgyver210]

Originally Posted by rumbleweed

Chris
I ended up doing the same thing on a site I run. It was actually less work approving the few new members per week than trying to catch and remove 3 times as much SPAM. A one time short delay to sign up is a small investment for a. Spam free board.

That was the most effective thing we did also & really worked best accept for the inconvenience to new members.

[Chris]

So far only two causalties. One person was banned by IP address, and one new user that must prove himself to me before I approve him. I agree with you Bob that it's easier for Bill and I to moderate new users than spam. We'll see how it goes. If they're not using SQL injections, we should be good and can ride out the storm. If someone you know is suddenly banned, let me know.
Thanks
Ct..

[Bill]

I can't answer whether it is "possible". But you have to remember that this board, like most others, operates with a purchased software package. In our case, it is vBulletin. And no one is going to rewrite a commercial software package.

The bounds of "possible" shrink a lot when the question is rephrased as "does the vBulletin software give you the ability to ..."

When the board was brand new, almost 10 years ago, I hounded Chris to rewrite the software to make simple changes. I didn't like the login procedure, could he change it? I hate the logout procedure (still do), could he change it? Could he move this green button to the other corner of the screen, and make it blue? This version of a smiley is hard to read, could you substitute that one?

Chris was very patient, and didn't berate me, and I gradually learned the ways of the world. This may be a similar case.

Bill

[mcgyver210]

Originally Posted by Bill

I can't answer whether it is "possible". But you have to remember that this board, like most others, operates with a purchased software package. In our case, it is vBulletin. And no one is going to rewrite a commercial software package.

The bounds of "possible" shrink a lot when the question is rephrased as "does the vBulletin software give you the ability to ..."

When the board was brand new, almost 10 years ago, I hounded Chris to make changes. I didn't like the login procedure, could he change it? I hate the logout procedure (still do), could he change it? Could he move this green button to the other corner of the screen, and make it blue? This version of a smiley is hard to read, could you substitute that one?

Chris was very patient, and didn't berate me, and I gradually learned the ways of the world. This may be a similar case.

Bill

This my main reasons why I have never liked VBulletin or any paid board format. They limit what you can do with your board as far as easy customization. I always use either PHPBB or MyBB which are free board software with lots of free & some paid support along with virtually unlimited addon scripts.

Bill one of the easiest ways to combat spam is to have more mods. This board is a target due to daily traffic & the fact it is easy to sign up for membership.

There are other things that can be done also which can include but not limited to:

1. Set up & use the built in Report Function which with most boards is farily versatile & semi-automatic.

2. You could go to all new members need to be mod approved first which isn't fool proof but cuts down on fake members & does require more mods to be available. This is a method I used on most of my board projects in the past.

3. You can limit posting permissions of all members with 0 - whatever number post count to mod approval before their post show up at first. This is a very popular well used method by many boards now days but does require more trusted mods.

4. We could also limit new posters to one forum category until they post a few post or are manually approved for their full access to their 30 days.

There are many more methods I could mention but I don't know if VBulletin would work with them due to its limitations & my inexperience with it. Most methods that I have personally see work involve more hands on mods unfortunately since most any addons are computer controlled & eventually can be beaten by Spammers.


Most people that frequent boards now days know & understand even though many of the Spam prevention methods used today are inconvenient they are necessary to control SPAM.

Good Luck with this issue it is an ongoing back & forth battle once your board is on the SPAM Radar as you know.

[Bill]

Interesting thoughts, Billy. My thoughts in response are:

Originally Posted by mcgyver210

This my main reasons why I have never liked VBulletin. I always use either PHPBB or MyBB

Not really helpful. This board is built on vBulletin. It is unlikely that we will switch to either PHPBB or MyBB at this point, so that is off the table. Of course an Admin decision and Admin action could make it happen, so you might want to take it up with Chris.

one of the easiest ways to combat spam is to have more mods.

Already under discussion. I have someone in mind. Not many members are willing to step into the snake pit, though, so we will see what he says.

1. Set up & use the built in Report Function

As you know, the Report Function is already set up and works. As you also know, I have asked people not to use it, since all it does is dump an email into my Inbox. Dealing with multiple email reports in my Inbox is certainly no easier than dealing with the spam reports in the thread we set up for that purpose. And it does nothing to stop the spam in the first place.

2. You could go to all new members need to be mod approved

Certainly possible, and at least it is pro-active - it lets you sort out the spammer before he posts. As you note, it would require another mod, and I would be worried that a new signup might fall into the cracks between us. But that is manageable. A variant, which I would like to see, is a hold period between the moment a new member registers (this is when I can see his parameters for the first time), and the moment when the enabling email is dispatched and he can log in. Right now, the process is almost instant! Chris, it's TOO GOOD! A 48-hour hold would give me time to see the guy's information and decide what to do with him, before he is given the ability to log in. And if he can't log in, he can't post. And that's what we're looking for.

3. You can limit posting permissions of all members with 0 - whatever number post count to mod approval before their post show up at first.

You're right - it certainly does increase the work load. As noted above, I would rather head them off earlier in the process, such as at Registration To me this is better than waiting for them to post, and taking them down then. And the spammers are ahead of you. We have seen several cases recently in which a new guy comes aboard and makes a very innocent first post - something like "Yeah, I agree." Then his second post is spam.

4. We could also limit new posters to one forum category until they post a few post

I'm not sure how this will help. The spammers don't care what forum they post in. If you give them permission to post in one particular forum, that's where they will spam. And that's what we are trying to prevent in the first place.

In summary, most of your approaches are quite labor-intensive - hence the need for more moderators. I think that a better approach is to do a better job with the automated tools, and I think we can do it. I may be wrong.

We actually have one more option that you didn't mention. I believe you and I have talked about what I call the Nuclear Option. Chris and I have had a short discussion about it, but it needs to be discussed again.

Good Luck with this issue it is an ongoing back & forth battle once your board is on the SPAM Radar as you know

Thanks, Billy. We'll keep working at it. We certainly are on somebody's radar!

Bill

[Chris]

So I put up a freebie board for a site that I am working on for my wife and I's new business...trettalpc.com. It's a simple machines forum which is the follow on product from what used to be YABB which we ran prior to going to VBulletin. Now I haven't done anything to the forum other than install it. It's been up for a while now, but just an empty shell. It has the following - all from spam:
18461 Posts in 13621 Topics by 24318 Members

The funny part is that there were a maximum of 58 members online yesterday...all spammers.

Wow.
Ct..

[countrygirl]

Those people obviously have too much free time.

[ShrimpBurrito]

Wow, that is just incredible. Roughly how long had the site been live?

Dave

Most of them are probably not real people, but spam bots. I manage a local church group food bank site here and was getting 10-20 new members and posts per day (98% of which were from Russia and India). Tried lots of things then finally disabled online registration. As it is a small group of people that so post I manually add them and rest of the users use it as read only which works fine.