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Something to help prevent spam.


gr8nuguy

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If possible, maybe we can prevent spam users from making an account is by have them verify their account via email? Also make it so location on profile can't be something like afdsfa, adfdsaf  as was seen in the 4 spam posts i reported.  Or maybe have a delay of so many hours before someone can post? Ive seen other forums implement something like those before, maybe we can here??

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If possible, maybe we can prevent spam users from making an account is by have them verify their account via email? Also make it so location on profile can't be something like afdsfa, adfdsaf  as was seen in the 4 spam posts i reported.  Or maybe have a delay of so many hours before someone can post? Ive seen other forums implement something like those before, maybe we can here??

Maybe an activation email, where you have to input some sorta captcha ?
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I wouldn't say a delay of hours....I spend multiple hours on here and sometimes post within minute intervals. A spam captcha would be good in the email. Please verify you're human by doing this now type of thing lol.

only a delay for new users, like make account-->delay before they can post anything 

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Perhaps a urine and blood test and a 250 word acceptance essay to confirm identity and intent?

And the essay requires a passing grade from me.

 

AJ

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We do require email validation of accounts. The only other thing I can think to do is have posts go into moderation queue. But that would discourage people from becoming active members and would become an even larger burden to staff than removing spam a couple times per week.

 

Is it really so bad that once or twice per week someone sees spam, hits the report button, and then a staff member blocks them and I ban them and report to IP Board?

 

I'd love for the spammers to go away permanently. But IP Board is really good at figuring out how to stop the new guys when I report to them. Did you know that IP Board shuts down about half of all our new accounts every day automatically because they are known spammers? Every time I report a spammer to them, they analyze the new info and come up with a way to battle them on thousands of boards in the future. We only experience the tip of the iceberg with spammers. The few that make it through.

 

We had a really bad spam problem about two weeks ago. We were getting spammed several times per day. It took IP Board a few days to figure out how to deal with them, but then they suddenly stopped. We spent maybe an hour or two of our resources to deal with a severe spam attack over 3 days. Not a big deal. And IP Board dealt with it.

 

I don't think it's worth giving up liberties of our new members to try to block spammers. Not at this point. Just keep reporting it. I will ban them and report to IP Board. And IP Board will figure out how to shut them down network wide. That is, until the next new way the spammers figure out how to get through.

 

The problem is people actually buy things from spammers. Otherwise, they would not even exist. They actually work. :(

 

Robert via Samsung Note 8.0 using Tapatalk Pro

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When I used to run a forum few years, I had a system were you couldn't post right after another. It helps a lot with bots who would spam within seconds of each other. It was setup to 30 secs. Not sure if IP Board has a feature where you can do it till someone reaches a certain amount of post, and the rule doesn't apply.

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If we have to get a passing grade from AJ, this just becomed a lot more difficulter.

 

This essay...it just got a hell of a lot more difficulter.

 

 

AJ

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I've been an invision board admin for almost 10 years... there are modules you can get to further stop spammers... I am not sure of your setup tho, if you're hosting on IPB's servers, or your own.

 

When my board had this problem, we spent a lot of time looking for fixes. The most obvious one, was to institute a question/answer on the signup page... for example

 

Question: "What cellular carrier is this site dedicated to?"

Answer: "sprint"

 

Then it passes you, and you will lose all the automated spam accounts.

 

 

Just my 2 cents, what do I know.

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I've been an invision board admin for almost 10 years... there are modules you can get to further stop spammers... I am not sure of your setup tho, if you're hosting on IPB's servers, or your own.

 

When my board had this problem, we spent a lot of time looking for fixes. The most obvious one, was to institute a question/answer on the signup page... for example

 

Question: "What cellular carrier is this site dedicated to?"

Answer: "sprint"

 

Then it passes you, and you will lose all the automated spam accounts.

 

 

Just my 2 cents, what do I know.

 

I'm still not of the mind set we have gotten to the problem level.  We are just now at the, yeah it happens sometimes level.  But that may be worth pursuing in the future.  When we actually start having to put any significant resources towards spammers.  Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Robert

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