SPAM question for the Mods
 

I was just wondering if you have come up with a solution to prevent spammers from initiating threads.

If not, another forum that I am part of seems to have come up with a plan that seems to be working.

I was thinking that the regulars (people who visit at least twice a day) could be given delete authority. If 2 or more of them agreed, a thread could be deleted. Each of these people would be a "half delete-only mod".

I run two other forums, BNR. What is your suggestion?

I like your idea. And would love to hear BNR's idea too.

MTD, Sr.

I think whatever you decide is fine with me.:)

I know of a site that has everyone that wants to participate in the site, must pay at least $10 annually. Now this might not go over well with people who have been here for years. But you do not see any spammers coming to that site and infecting the board constantly. I have a feeling that will not go over well with the regulars at all. But at the very least you would stop people just coming onto the site to constantly spam over and over and over again.

Peace

I'm on a football fan site and the Administrator has set it up so the no one can start a thread until they have posted 'X' amount of responses to other threads in the forum. A guess the spammer's software isn't set up to respond to threads, only to initiate them.

That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

There are some posts which are valid posts, but where the original poster will likely not come back to the board after receiving an answer. If they must post in other threads to reach a post count before able to start their own thread, then they will not post at all, or become more interested and possibly more involved. If a goal is to discourage people from wandering away, then maybe the way to handle is to have a feature to allow a newbie to start a thread, but it must be approved by mods before it is visible. Or, if voted as "yes" by at least 3 regular members, it becomes visible, and voted "no" by at least 3 regular members, it remains invisible.

How will the regulars be able to view it?

Those with at least x number of posts will be able to see it. All it is is an if statement or two in the code. I would put the x to be 1,000 posts.

I like the idea of 'regulars' being able to delete inappropriate posts but this can also lead to abuse if those with delete authority use it to remove posts for personal reasons.

What?? Officials with "authority" issues? Absolute and utter poppycock!
:D

The Juggler mentioned needing agreement from 2 "regulars." I'd suggest a higher threshold, perhaps 5 or 6. I'd also suggest something slightly different.

A sort of semi-moderator position; it doesn't have to be identified on the tags, but it could be. It would be a group chosen much as the moderators are chosen, but would include more people with less authority than the current moderators have. This group would need to reach either a majority vote or a consensus of 5 (any number could be chosen) before deleting, closing, or editing a post or thread.

IMO, a "challenge and response" system would work better than any of the alternatives so far presented.

Could you elaborate on this? Is it what it appears to be?

1. M&M says something that offends me.
2. I make an official challenge.
3. M&M gets to respond.
4. Mick gets to kick him in the teeth.

Kicking myself for missing this earlier, but this could be called an "esteemed member."

With that suggestion, the change just HAS to be implemented. Even if in the end, that person has no special moderator-type duties. :p

I like this idea. In fact, I don't think I'm going to wait for Mick or anyone else to make the appointments.

A user-id registers with an email address. The board automatically sends a message to the email address something like "click here to prove you are a real person." If the person responds, then the registration is complete. If not, then it's not, and no posting is allowed.

It helps keep the spammers away, and it helps manage the trolls (since they have to use a valid email address). It does mean the board sends out more emails, and that in-an-of-iteself can cause some problems.

All sound like reasonable ideas... I'm up for bid. If you'd like me to vote for your idea send me a check. :D

But, seriously, I like the voting idea.

I think the spambots are smart enough to get around the "click here if you are real". Maybe not...

So how soon can we get these additional controls in place?

Limit the number of user I.D.s to no more than 6 usernames per IP address.

This is always a tough call because you have to balance the desire for new members and the ease of their registration and the ability to filter out spam/trolls.

Moderating and approving a persons first X many post is time consuming for the moderators.

Having X many people vote to delete a post I wouldn't think is a good idea, because it can be perceived as unfair. But if there is a post you have issue with hit the red & white triangle in the corner. This lets the mods know they need to look at something. I'm sure if they get enough of those on a single post they will take appropriate action.

Yes the spam-bots are getting smarter and smarter, every time there is a defense created for them they will start working on a way to defeat it.

Spam and trolls are an unfortunate reality of the internet and forums. The biggest problem is that there is no way to eliminate them without making things too inconvenient for current and new members.

Bob or Mick -

How does the triangle button work ("Report Bad Post")? Does a message get sent to Bob and you or does it go to Brad? Just curious...thanks.

Bob and I get e-mail notification.
I dunno about Brad or other administrators, but I think he/they gets it too.

FWIW, I read (or at least skim) all the posts in the Baseball and Basketball forums (except the annual baseball thread in the Basketball forum). So, I'm likely to see any posts so offensive that you'd report them. When you report them, it just "wastes" my time to read the report. So, I'd appreciate it if you didn't report any of those posts unless there's something that you think I missed (after a day or so).

Ha! There's something to that.

If I get a reported post, and you have already dealt with it, I go looking for something that ain't there.
Very tough to find. :)

Hey - I'm a mod too on a fan site in Canada. I hate it when that happens!

I report a lot of stuff in the General Forum. Would you prefer that I didn't? Or do you not patrol too much in here, so I'm being helpful? Either way is fine. But if I'm just duplicating your effort, I'll cease and desist.

I forgot about that one -- I also immediately delete threads in there that are obviously spam, and I read the threads that aren't. So, please don't report ;) (unless I miss something)

Like that crap in the softball forum that lasted a few days? ;)

Note that I am not a moderator for that forum.

I was gone for three days.
Next time it will be longer.
It's an imperfect world.

I wasn't trying to pick on you, Mick. Just noting that there are some forums that are, well, less frequented than the others. :)
Honestly, I wasn't aware of the triangle thingy or I would have done it the 2nd day.

Your reporting of posts in that forum are pretty infrequent, maybe 2-3 a month?
There are 10-20 posts a day that go away on that forum, 80-120 per week.
12 today, methinks.

The post was reported, by PM and e-mail, 5 times, but I still wasn't home.

Fair enough. It happens.

Just a thought...

What if, for a person's first 5 posts, they had to enter a verification code (similar to what you see in order to buy tickets on Ticketmaster).

I've seen this implemented on boardhost...

Would something like this be possible?