digip Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I was talking with Vako the other day about this, but it seems we need to impliment some sort of minimum post mod to the forums again, like we had on the old SMF forums. People used to need to have a certain number of posts under their belt before they could post links, but since the move to the new forums, people can now post spammy links on their first Topic post. Once they know this, they can just keep creating new acocunts and posting 1 post with spam in them move on. I have flagged a few of them lately, so it seems like the spam is picking up momentum. Not sure how many others have been flagged or deleted since the move to the new forums, but just wanted to see if there is anything we can do about it. THIS IS NOT A RANT AGAINST THE NEW FORUM SOFTWARE, but I think that it is a legit problem that needs to be discussed and worked on. If there isn't a known mod to post links after a certain minimum post count using the current forum software, then maybe someone here who is good with php could write one for us or collaborate on a fix. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 There are some anti-spam mods, and I'll take a look at installing them once I can get my hands on a 2nd install of IPB to play with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I didn't notice any spam... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I didn't notice any spam... That's because we keep deleting it. Oh, and since we're on the subject, can we have something like the old report system so I don't end up having my (horrible to use) PM inbox spammed whenever someone finds a message they'd like to report. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind deleting spam and stuff, it's what I'm here for, but it could be so much more graceful... I don't even know whether the message has been dealt with until I get my wonderful popup telling me I have a PM, which never shows enough of the message to get the URL of the reported post, then I go to my inbox (manually, because the popup doesn't take you there), just to find that someone's already deleted it. Doesn't seem too bad when you put it like that, but compared to the old moderator subforum, this is a nightmare Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomeoneE1se Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 It's almost as if SMF was better and and IPB is crap... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicatronTg Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 It's almost as if SMF was better and and IPB is crap... It depends what it is used for. I would use SMF just because its free and well supported, but someone in-experienced with running a site might pay good money to have someone set up IBP for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomeoneE1se Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 are you saying VaKo is in experienced? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manuel Posted June 23, 2008 Share Posted June 23, 2008 yeah... Im sure VaKo feels inexperienced, since he got the shaft. I too am not trying to make this an "I'm against this software" discussion, but the fact of the matter is that SMF was doing us just fine and had a lot better setup for administering it. With SMF... there was very little spam, if any at all... and with IPB, there seems to be quite a bit more of it. The moderators/admins do a great job of dealing with it, but they should not have to devote a lot of their time to that problem. I'll step off of my soap box now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted June 23, 2008 Share Posted June 23, 2008 VaKo is on holiday right now, and will post more later. But SMF went live after 2 months of testing, both public and private and with 7 or 8 mods for dealing with spam, whereas IPB is running in pretty much stock config. While IPB is capable of stopping bots, it does not have the same protection i configured SMF with from day 1 and thus we have problems.. I have already identified several mods which should replicate what SMF used to do, and once Darren or Matt can sort me out a copy of ipb for testing them we should have the spam issue back under control. As for my expirence or lack of with IPB, remember SMF was my project from inception, whereas IPB was Darren and Matts project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomeoneE1se Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 Yeah and they both dropped the ball big time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Famicoman Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 Not to mention SMF also had a way better admin interface and mobile support. Pity stuff had to change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomeoneE1se Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 Oh yeah, mobile support... I miss that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted June 29, 2008 Share Posted June 29, 2008 Mobile support is being worked on, I'm actually looking for coders for this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cipjef Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 I suggest we adopt AGDIs policy of "You have to register to post". Sure, its an annoyance for lurkers, but it will certainly make this guys attempts to spam a lot more difficult for him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Everyone does have to register, always has been that way. Spammers register accounts and spam, either with a human or with bots. We used to have something that stopped your first post or 2 containing any links, but that was a mod for a version of SMF we stopped using a long while back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Also, it's not a "him" or "her", it's thousands of compromised machines aiming at no-one in particular, professional spammers who just pebbledash any forum their bots can find. Bots have been able to register their own accounts for years, they appear just like any regular user (except the viagra posts, random/badly generated names and other little things you get to recognise). Still, this thread's a year old and I don't think we've had much of a problem lately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomethingToChatWith Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 How about making it where the first 2 posts or so haft to be approved before they are even posted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArkNinja Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 That would be a big pain in the ass for Mods/Admins, how many members are there on the forum again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Approvals are too much effort and discourage newbies, mods are only any good if they do specific things (which is why the "first post cannot contain a link" mod combined with a Hello! thread worked so well). The only thing that actually works is having a team of humans armed with delete buttons and odd sleep patterns who are active forum members, along side a report to moderator function that users use. This way spam is usually removed within an hour or so of posting, which is fine for a forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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