Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Tired of reporting spam

Tired of reporting spam

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hkparker - 9-7-2011 at 00:50

I'm sure everyone has noticed lots of spam recently. I guess it's not the biggest deal but I was wondering if it would be a good idea to make people do a captcha for their first post, or first 5 posts. These spam bots look like bots, not people, so that should take care of it. If it didn't we could could have mods approve a new members first post. If mods don't want to have to go through all that I'm sure other members would volunteer their time. Thoughts?

m1tanker78 - 16-7-2011 at 08:51

These things have been brought up before. It's weird that people actually view, and sometimes even respond, when it's clearly spam. I think that some of the bots are human-guided.

I reported a thread once and was surprised that a U2U was sent to ALL the moderators. It seems redundant to do it that way.

I believe a new member's first 2 or 3 posts should be screened -OR- grant a few established, frequent members a quasi-moderator status so that suspicious posts can be put on hold (not deleted or edited) and let the real moderator have the last word. This would greatly cut down on multiple members reporting the same spam thread IMO. A thread that is 'on hold' (or temporarily locked) can't be opened by anyone except the mods. That way, the newbies or the unsuspecting members don't get suckered into clicking on links and so forth.

Though, all this may be easier said than done.

Tank

Polverone - 16-7-2011 at 11:25

People already have to decode a captcha from the forum to sign up. People also need to be able to receive email at a real address. Many of the spammers use gmail addresses, and gmail has its own captcha system required for signup. I don't know what the division of labor is between bots and humans, but there appears to be no shortage of humans to process captchas when necessary.

The one silver lining is that this site is busy enough that spammers are noticed quickly. On some low-activity forums spammers create a death spiral, where spam isn't eliminated fast enough and then the real users grow disinterested because all recent posts seem to be spam.

hkparker - 16-7-2011 at 13:04

thats true. I always report spam, is this to be encouraged or should I stop because enough people already report?

m1tanker78 - 17-7-2011 at 14:23

Good question. I do the opposite, neglecting to hit the report button thinking others have already reported the spam.

Come to think of it, I rarely ever open a thread with a spammy title by a new member. I guess it's no surprise that a good majority of the spam posts are jewelry-related. I'll bet the crawler(?) sees a lot of words like "platinum", "gold", etc. on here and deems this a good place to drop jewelry spam.

One other thing that probably helps to propagate spam on here is the fact that Science Madness has a good presence on Goooogle.

All in all, it's under control IMO (except for some sporadic outbreaks). That's likely where a human intervenes to defeat the captha.

Parker, since you're in Cali, have you ever driven down to TJ??

Tank

hkparker - 17-7-2011 at 18:27

TJ? Take that as a no, what is it?

Bot0nist - 18-7-2011 at 03:46

Tijuana maybe? I hear they got donkey shows...

Wizzard - 18-7-2011 at 09:40

I think quasi-moderators and adding a 24-hour delay to thread creation (Best example: Plaster all over the user creation, if they create a thread within 24 hours of their profile's creation, it and their profile will be deleted). Should be easy to enforce with some deadlines.

Also, some simple yes/no questions with the answers written in plain language nearby:
Do not check this box, check the next one []
Ignore this text, check the box []
Check this box if you followed directions []

Bot0nist - 18-7-2011 at 12:03

I like what barley81 did in the last spam thread. After reporting it, he posted "Spam thread reported" in the thread. This way everyone who always reports every spam they see (like me) will know its handled, and it will keep us from flooding the moderators with report U2Us. So, If you see a spam thread and it doesn't have a "reported spam" post in it, report it and post that you did. I think this will help.

hkparker - 18-7-2011 at 12:10

That sounds perfect, ill do that.

White Yeti - 27-12-2011 at 11:22

I actually like reporting spam. Is that weird?
I did notice that there's more spam recently, it's strange that people would chose to spam this website, the conglomeration the the best and brightest minds on the web.

I agree that it's critical to post "spam reported" after reporting, so that the administrators don't get a flood of U2Us about the same spammer.

This is just an idea, but is it possible to set up a limit to how many hyperlinks you can put in one post? Granted, some users use many hyperlinks to direct people to pertinent and useful content and documents. But I think that if one post has more than ~15 hyperlinks, it should automatically be sent to the administrators so they can decide for themselves.

I personally never used more than 5 hyperlinks, this might be a nice way to automatise the elimination of spammers. Spam is mostly automatic, so why not eliminate it in a semi-automatic fashion as well?

Wizzard - 27-12-2011 at 12:09

I think no sig/hyperlinks in the first 10 posts would be nice, but all that will yield is SPAM posts without content!

Why not an elementary science question for an additional captcha? Maybe, what element has atomic number 1? Or, "Do as you oughtta, add acid to ____" or something promoting common sense / safety

"A good chemist always wears his ____ goggles and gloves" or something.

White Yeti - 27-12-2011 at 12:18

Maybe I wasn't clear. What I meant is to set up a threshold over which any post with a number of hyperlinks greater than or equal to that amount would be sent to admin for inspection.

Sedit - 27-12-2011 at 13:30

Is there no way we can track them? These spammers are coming from forums somewhere. Can we not find anyway to figure out where they are coming from?

hkparker - 27-12-2011 at 14:12

First thing I would think is IP. But they could proxy up or use TOR, and it would be a huge pain, futile, and kinda wrong to block known proxies and TOR nodes. They might be coming from the same IP anyway. So unless we see a trend in IPs then probably not by IP.

I like the idea of first post needs to be approved by a mod. If the mods don't want that responsibility maybe they could be approved by anyone? Everyone's first post goes in a private section and all it takes is a user confirming it isn't spam for it to go public. This system would allow for the possibility of abuse though. Also I think the current spam situation isn't detrimental to the forum.

Bot0nist - 27-12-2011 at 16:54

Quote: Originally posted by hkparker

I think the current spam situation isn't detrimental to the forum.

I agree, I think the "spam reported" posts are working. It is annoying when a bot comes on and bumps 20+ old threads to today's post's with spam, but most of the time it's just a post or two and the mods are really good about getting it right in a timely manner. Also, I hope the "spam reported"posts help from keeping us from flooding the mod and admins boxes.

AndersHoveland - 28-12-2011 at 01:25

Quote: Originally posted by Sedit

Is there no way we can track them? These spammers are coming from forums somewhere. Can we not find anyway to figure out where they are coming from?

I am fairly certain most of them are based in China or India. Sometimes I wonder whether the 1 billion people in China now having access to the internet (many of whom are learning english) is a good thing.

hissingnoise - 28-12-2011 at 01:56

China's population now is around 1,400,000,000.
Sleeping giant, indeed!

[edit] Waking giant, I shudda' said!

[Edited on 28-12-2011 by hissingnoise]

hkparker - 28-12-2011 at 02:38

Quote: Originally posted by AndersHoveland

Internets is for everyone, not just those who speak English, the only problem I see with their internet setup is the censorship.

AndersHoveland - 28-12-2011 at 06:52

Quote: Originally posted by hkparker

Internets is for everyone, the only problem I see with their internet setup is the censorship.

Perhaps I have a solution that will cleanse this forum forever of pointless spam...

Someone just contact the chinese government and relate to them that you have reason to believe this forum may be providing information on how to make explosives to chinese dissidents. They will not hesitate to block this forum from all users in China.

Hopefully there are not any good chinese members that frequent here.

Nicodem - 28-12-2011 at 09:24

If everyone that uses the report function would also leave the "spam reported" notification, then everything would be just fine. It does not take much to clean up the spam, but unnecessarily going trough a dozen reports is somewhat annoying. Thankfully there are members who promptly report spam. It helps a lot, but it would be even better that there would only be members who report and notify others about the report. So this is what members can work on in order to improve the spam removal system.

Quote: Originally posted by AndersHoveland

Hopefully there are not any good chinese members that frequent here.

How about contacting a Swedish embassy and telling them that there is a certain delusional neonazi that gathers such information on this forum? Wouldn't that make much more sense? At least it would not cause any injustice to anyone and might actually help the authorities to finally arrest the right person.

Bot0nist - 28-12-2011 at 10:25

Hehe, you mean Nicodem. But caustically hilarious.

[Edited on 28-12-2011 by Bot0nist]

gutter_ca - 28-12-2011 at 11:35

Quote: Originally posted by Nicodem

gutter_ca likes this.

Pulverulescent - 13-1-2012 at 01:58

Jeeez! Something really needs to be done to stop this shite pouring into the forum!
I mean, it's got waaay beyond a joke!!!

P

dann2 - 13-1-2012 at 10:10

Funny, I rarely see spam?
(apart for Pulverulencent's posts!!*)

Dann2

* only joking

Pulverulescent - 13-1-2012 at 11:24

Only just . . .

UnintentionalChaos - 15-1-2012 at 23:20

Seems like a lot of spam shows up in the later hours (early am, EST) when not many people are on the board. Or maybe the reaction time of mods is merely slower for the same reason.

If handing out partial mod powers is even possible and deemed a good idea by the powers that be, I'd volunteer for a strictly spam-destroying position.

hkparker - 15-1-2012 at 23:24

I would volunteer as well. I'm a bit newer but mods can look through my U2Us and see I have reported tons of spam when the threads have few views.

Bot0nist - 16-1-2012 at 07:05

Ditto, I love reporting spam.
Though, it does seem to get deleted pretty fast as of now. I have only seen it get backed up bad a couple times. Are more spam deleters needed?

Pulverulescent - 16-1-2012 at 07:20

Quote:

Ditto, I love reporting spam.

You'd kinda miss spam, then? (

)
Masochism . . . ? (

)

P

hkparker - 16-1-2012 at 07:39

haha, but I agree, spam destroying positions probably arn't needed in SM's current state, I'm more offering myself if the mods feel more people can't hurt. Also, if we ever do the user's-first-post-must-be-approved-thing, which I doubt we will do, we should have more people.

madscientist - 20-1-2012 at 18:32

Quote:

Also, I hope the "spam reported"posts help from keeping us from flooding the mod and admins boxes.

As Nicodem said, this is definitely helpful. If we don't have to dig through 10 spam reports all reporting the same post, we're more likely to deal with it quickly.

bfesser - 13-3-2012 at 05:30

Oi.

Perhaps we could add a semi-automated spam deletion feature to the forum. A button would go right next to the current "REPORT" button that would say "SPAM". When a member clicks on the button, the post doesn't get reported as spam, but instead gets a spam point against it. As the spam points accumulate, when a predetermined threshold is reached, the post is automatically deleted. In the case of serial spambots, the account is automatically disabled and the moderators notified via U2U of the deactivation. They then review the deactivation to be sure it's valid before banning the IP.

[Edited on 3/13/12 by bfesser]

White Yeti - 13-3-2012 at 10:54

What happened lately?! My mailbox was filled with 20+ messages overnight! I don't subscribe to many threads either.

Are spammers organising? Four spammers or more within the span of 24h is quite a feat!

Hexavalent - 7-4-2012 at 09:35

I would also volunteer for a spam-busting role. . . .I haven't been here all that long, just over 4 months, but I really wanna help and do some good around here

White Yeti - 8-4-2012 at 04:43

Spam-busting could be something that alternates between people over the span of the day. I'm sure Polverone and all the moderators are not equally available throughout the day, so if you could get a group of volunteers to take up certain distinct times of the day, it would be easier on the moderators.

I'm idealistic as usual, but what do you think about that kind of system? Of course, everyone has to be dedicated and truly active during the span of time they sign up for. You'd probably need 2 or 3 people for the same span of time, so when someone is not here, someone else replaces him.

Besides, it's not like this forum is rained upon too heavily by spam.

peach - 8-4-2012 at 10:09

Quote:

When a member clicks on the button, the post doesn't get reported as spam, but instead gets a spam point against it. As the spam points accumulate, when a predetermined threshold is reached, the post is automatically deleted.

That's an alright idea, but it'd also be possible for people with multiple accounts here to abuse the button. One way to partially solve that would be to only give the button to members who've been here for years.

How about just a separate spam button that, once clicked, is disabled for the post.

I don't really have much knowledge of how flexible the forum code is in terms of fitting these things in.

Since the spammers don't bother visiting first and building up an account, and I do like the introductory idea, I also like the 'first post section' idea. When the bot signs up to spam, it can go in there and then won't be able to post any more until someone's clicked that they're an actual person. Just have say, ten or twenty people moderating that one subsection.

Eddygp - 1-5-2012 at 02:55

MOst spam bots post their spam on the first topic possible. There should be a Spam Box before Chemistry in General so most spam is put there. Every time an account puts a comment there, the account gets deleted. How about that?

rollercoaster158 - 6-5-2012 at 15:15

Another spam bot joined today: vightmwu. 5 posts that are nearly unintelligible and seem to be advertising. Sigh...

White Yeti - 7-5-2012 at 11:04

This may be premature, but I'd keep my eye on "Explosci". He seems to be (over)advertising his website. His website is printed in his mood, quote, username and profile. He's clearly not a bot, but all 3 of his posts are him advertising his website.

UnintentionalChaos - 16-10-2012 at 16:34

I'd like to reiterate my above point given the recent resurgence of spam. I am on this forum at all sorts of hours when mods are not around and I'd happily trash some spam posts to make removal faster if anyone cares -that- much.

12AX7 - 16-10-2012 at 22:37

Do we have a captcha on registration or anything? All the posts I've been seeing look like random generated user names. Just bots running wild; if that's the case, it's amazing this place isn't simply swamped. (Maybe it is, which would be a testament to our moderators' commitment!)

Tim

Polverone - 17-10-2012 at 02:15

There's a captcha on registration. Many of the spammers have gmail addresses, so that's another set of captchas they have passed.

hissingnoise - 17-10-2012 at 02:25

Polverone, could a select number of members who are trusted, regular posters be given the facility to delete spam as they find it?

Fleaker - 20-10-2012 at 18:16

I would volunteer. I've noticed a few spammers of late and am on more frequently...

elementcollector1 - 20-10-2012 at 18:32

I'm still wondering about the part where a reported thread puts a message in your U2U to every moderator. After a while, deleting all those "Spam reported" posts to keep your inbox clean gets a little old. Perhaps they just shouldn't show up in the inbox at all?

hissingnoise - 21-10-2012 at 01:38

Polverone is compiling the list as we squeak . . .

froot - 24-10-2012 at 22:32

I have volunteered my assistance in the past.

Just a note, on another forum I manage I have found that many spammers have the same email address and banning by email has been somewhat effective.

triplepoint - 24-10-2012 at 23:21

Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise

Polverone is compiling the list as we squeak . . .

I volunteer.

kill spam :mad:

bad spam

kill spam

hissingnoise - 25-10-2012 at 02:06

If spammers were ignored completely they'd soon go away . . .
Seeing their posts get no views would quickly put them off!

triplepoint - 25-10-2012 at 04:24

Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise

If spammers were ignored completely they'd soon go away . . .
Seeing their posts get no views would quickly put them off!

These spam posters probably do not know or much care about monitoring their views. Aside from making the account, the posting is probably pretty automated.

Also, even with no replies, these posts crowd out and push down legitimate poster on the Todays Posts view. I don't know about everyone else, but that's how I usually view the board.

hissingnoise - 25-10-2012 at 04:42

Oh, I'd say just enough monitoring goes on to assure them they're not actually wasting their time . . .

malcolmf - 26-10-2012 at 23:54

Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise

If spammers were ignored completely they'd soon go away . . .
Seeing their posts get no views would quickly put them off!

Doesn't work with so called Search Engine Optimizers
They don't care if no-one here reads their posts. That helps them, delaying deletion. Just so long as Google's crawler sees the posts before they get deleted, and PageRank ups the rating of whatever site has its links scattered so liberally in the posting.
We're not the intended market.

[Edited on 27-10-2012 by malcolmf]

12AX7 - 28-10-2012 at 10:07

Do crawlers and bots produce views? I would think so? Whether they can see anything at all depends on the robots.txt settings and how the server and forum are configured.

Tim

cyanureeves - 28-10-2012 at 13:21

i swear i saw a spambot try to answer a member's question instead of it usually being the top post. they are getting smarter and maybe one day they are going to show us how to make nike shoes in a Rb flask.

malcolmf - 28-10-2012 at 23:42

Quote: Originally posted by cyanureeves

i swear i saw a spambot try to answer a member's question instead of it usually being the top post. they are getting smarter and maybe one day they are going to show us how to make nike shoes in a Rb flask.

Oh, if only....
I am reminded of this: http://xkcd.com/810/

Twospoons - 1-11-2012 at 17:26

How about we make it cost $1 to register? At least we'd be making money to support the site if the spammers continue to create accounts.

Spam slaying code now active

Polverone - 1-11-2012 at 18:37

I have written a program that automatically uses spam reports from members to get rid of spam and spammers.

Here's how it works:

Report a spam post and give the reason as "spam." This is what most members already do when reporting spam.

When two trusted members* have reported a post as spam, it will be considered as spam if the spam-poster is less than 30 days old. The vast majority of real spam accounts are this young. I put in this check to prevent people from abusing the spam system by calling real members spammers.

When a post has been determined by the above checks to be spam, all of the spammer's threads and posts are deleted, followed by the spammer account. I rely on multiple independent spam reports to avoid false positives.

A cron job now runs the spam-killing check every 2 minutes.

Note to moderators: sorry for all the spam reports left in your inboxes. I have added some code to remove spam reports that have already been dealt with, but it was not active for the big purge that just ran.

*Members who have previously been good at reporting spam, picked by me from reviewing my spam report U2Us.

[Edited on 7-8-2013 by Polverone]

elementcollector1 - 1-11-2012 at 20:14

Oh, whoops. Didn't even see this post.
Still, that program is going to come in real handy if it works. Thanks, Polverone!
Does the program have something to determine if 'spam'' is in the report, or would something like "Spam..." not get through?

Polverone - 1-11-2012 at 22:28

Any reported post containing 'spam', by itself or admixed with other words, will count.

froot - 2-11-2012 at 02:17

Very clever idea, well done.

Eddygp - 3-11-2012 at 05:33

When GoogleBot sees a post, it checks for keywords and inserts an ad based on that. If a spammer posts a lot of posts of for example web pages, there will sonn be ads on that. That is why Science madness had once gold, silver and platinum prices ads.

woelen - 3-11-2012 at 06:15

Polverone, this is a very good addition to the software. I have been wading through tens of reported posts and lately even through nearly 100 of them because I was a few days offline. Automatic removal of spam is great and if a few spam items remain then that is no problem, those can be handled manually. Now we can focus more on other things like cookery-threads, abuse of energetics and that kind of things

malcolmf - 5-11-2012 at 08:25

It's gone a lot quieter around here.

I noticed one quirk: when a spammer post gets deleted, if they were the last post in a section, they stay listed as the latest post until someone else posts there. As I write this, Honey360 was the most recent post in Forum Matters.
And at the moment, Honey360 is the last poster in Legal and Societal Issues, though that poster seems to have vanished

It's not a problem needing fixing, it's nice seeing the ghosts of departed spammers.

mr.crow - 9-11-2012 at 07:51

I posted 4 spam reports in a row last night. Probably just pissed off some mods. Only certain people can auto-delete reported spam? Guess it would be too easy to abuse otherwise

Polverone - 9-11-2012 at 15:15

Quote: Originally posted by mr.crow

I posted 4 spam reports in a row last night. Probably just pissed off some mods. Only certain people can auto-delete reported spam? Guess it would be too easy to abuse otherwise

You are already on the trusted list of spam reporters. But a second trusted person needs to confirm your report for at least one of those reported spam messages before the messages and spammer will be removed.

Note to mods: you can report a spam post too, and it requires only a single moderator report to delete the spam and spammer. This is faster if you encounter a prolific spammer that needs many posts removed. Within 5 minutes it will all be cleaned up. I never manually delete spam and spammers now, I just report one of the messages myself.

As an additional bonus for moderators, when you let the spam-killing tool work instead of manually deleting posts, it will also remove related unread spam reports from your inbox. You won't need to manually review them only to find they were reporting posts you already deleted.

[Edited on 11-9-2012 by Polverone]

watson.fawkes - 9-11-2012 at 16:50

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone

As an additional bonus for moderators, when you let the spam-killing tool work instead of manually deleting posts, it will also remove related unread spam reports from your inbox.

It would be great if you could remove the dozen or so outgoing U2U messages to moderators in the reporter's mailbox when spam is deleted. Then there would be zero downside for the reporter.

Vogelzang - 10-11-2012 at 16:06

Green eggs and spam

mr.crow - 10-11-2012 at 21:05

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone

Thanks! I always browse the forum at work so I catch quite a bit

12AX7 - 10-11-2012 at 22:19

Excellent work!

White Yeti - 11-11-2012 at 07:24

Very good work Polverone. There's just one point I'm a little unsure about. We can report the post by sending a link and labelling as 'spam', but can we also report the user, so that all associated posts are removed? It seems like a quicker solution, as spammers usually post numerous posts at once.

Polverone - 13-11-2012 at 01:11

Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone

As an additional bonus for moderators, when you let the spam-killing tool work instead of manually deleting posts, it will also remove related unread spam reports from your inbox.

It would be great if you could remove the dozen or so outgoing U2U messages to moderators in the reporter's mailbox when spam is deleted. Then there would be zero downside for the reporter.

I think this feature should be working now. Let me know.

Quote: Originally posted by White Yeti

Very good work Polverone. There's just one point I'm a little unsure about. We can report the post by sending a link and labelling as 'spam', but can we also report the user, so that all associated posts are removed? It seems like a quicker solution, as spammers usually post numerous posts at once.

If one of a user's posts gets confirmed as spam, all of their other posts will be removed before the account is removed, even posts that have not been explicitly reported.

99chemicals - 13-11-2012 at 03:23

I think it works. I just reported one and right after it said this topic does not exist. This could be coincidental as The_Davster is on.

The_Davster - 13-11-2012 at 03:36

I did just delete some spam.

watson.fawkes - 13-11-2012 at 07:50

Quote: Originally posted by Polverone

I think this feature should be working now. Let me know.

I'll let you know at the next opportunity to check the new behavior.

watson.fawkes - 15-11-2012 at 06:32

Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes

I'll let you know at the next opportunity to check the new behavior.

Verified this over the last day. I checked out a case I wanted to ensure didn't leave dangling messages. When a spammer leaves multiple messages (four or five in a row last night from one of them), I reported two of them. Since all posts from a spammer are deleted upon first detection, I wanted to ensure that all the outgoing U2U report messages go away as well. They do.

Good work.

Another thing I've noticed about the spam messages is that there's a fair amount of repeat traffic pointing to the same domain names. A blacklist of such domains would go a fair way to cutting down the visible traffic even more. At the very least, the spam messages should be saved for future analysis (or future software development).

Hexavalent - 19-11-2012 at 11:18

Just reported a load of spam about Nike trainers.

The new code seems to be working well, kudos to you Polverone!

Xenoid - 19-11-2012 at 12:04

I'm afraid I don't know much about this spamming problem annd correct me if I'm wrong -

- but is it not possible that a simple chemical question be answered at the time of registration?

A question regarding stoichiometry or balancing an equation would be most suitable, rather than a "fact" based question that a spammer could look up on Wikipedia.
I can't believe spammers or "bots" would be able to do this without going to great lengths.

It would also dissuade a few young k3wls from registering as a bonus!

Eddygp - 16-12-2012 at 12:51

I have lately reported loads of spam and cook topics. Some are hilarious, such as 5807-81-8 2-Diphenylmethylpiperidine, copied and pasted from a web page (item number is 5807-81-8, and product 2-dimethylpiperidine). Awesome, really. He didn't even notice.

Hexavalent - 23-12-2012 at 09:17

Quote: Originally posted by Xenoid

A question regarding stoichiometry or balancing an equation would be most suitable, rather than a "fact" based question that a spammer could look up on Wikipedia.

It would have to something moderately easy, though...perhaps we get some new members who are literally just starting out and haven't got to equations or stoichiometry yet.

Perhaps: 2Na + xH₂O ---> xNaOH + H₂

and they have to determine x to register? Not too difficult, and someone with an interest in chemistry should be able to decipher it even with only basic knowledge and understanding of the topic.

[Edited on 23-12-2012 by Hexavalent]

Eddygp - 23-12-2012 at 10:15

Spam bots can't fill in an answer for: "What is H2O?"
However, some people create accounts for bots...

Wizzard - 23-12-2012 at 10:27

Or a simple "Remove the text in the following box: [Human]"... Saw this one on another website recently

froot - 12-8-2013 at 03:06

Is the spam killing code still working? I've just reported a bunch of spam posts where others have mentioned they've done the same and they're still there. Either I'm not on the list or it's stopped working. If anyone posts a reply in these topics would those posts automatically disappear too or would they jam the code?

bfesser - 12-8-2013 at 06:00

Yes, the code is still working. The list could use revision, though. Replies are deleted, but there's no need to post "reported" in the topics, simply hit the report button and type "spam" into the box.

Marvin - 12-8-2013 at 08:06

Also replying to the topic to stop other people reporting it is self defeating, you need two people on the list to report.

It may be that the script is run periodically rather than triggered, so that no matter how many people report it, it won't get wiped until the script is next scheduled to run.

I'd be obliged if someone would check if I'm on the list too.

bfesser - 12-8-2013 at 08:26

If I recall correctly, the script is currently set to run on a 2 minute interval. And no, <strong>Marvin</strong>, you're not on the current iteration of the list—perhaps when it's updated. In the interim, I'm trying to check in as often as I can to remove spam. Please be patient, <strong>Polverone</strong> is very busy, and has much more important ('real life') things to attend to. Thanks.

Polverone - 12-8-2013 at 12:27

Marvin and froot now on the updated list. Thanks for reporting spam.

Eddygp - 30-9-2013 at 12:53

Is there a way to control spam more efficiently? I mean, I usually see that some user whose name is "akh4pgxxd3" or something similar has posted in Chemistry in General his first post... this user is (almost) always a spam bot. So just to think about a new way (moderation of the first post seem a bit too over-the-top anyway) because reporting every single spam bot isn't difficult at all. In fact I do it whenever I can, but I have thought that maybe there might exist a better alternative. So any ideas?

froot - 30-9-2013 at 22:12

If a bot posts a string of spam topics the only report the oldest post for each bot, it will take care of all the other posts and it will save time.

bismuthate - 1-10-2013 at 15:23

Make the website cost $10 to $100 to register on but have a giant button that says "click if you don't want to pay" if they click this then they don't need to pay. most bots could get throught it but a few would end up giving us money.
(stupid idea)

Eddygp - 3-10-2013 at 09:27

Quote: Originally posted by bismuthate

Make the website cost $10 to $100 to register on but have a giant button that says "click if you don't want to pay" if they click this then they don't need to pay. most bots could get throught it but a few would end up giving us money.
(stupid idea)

They would probably analyse the JavaScript if it was a good enough bot and just clearly see that they could go through. Please make a question like "Is a cat a plant?", and SPAM BOTS (not spammers who are human, though) would not answer "yes" or "Yes" or "Yes." . Most spam topics are created by spam bots judging by their username.

bfesser - 3-10-2013 at 09:48

Ultimately, we need to migrate to a modern forum application.

elementcollector1 - 9-10-2013 at 20:35

What is this, 10 spam posts in one day?!

bfesser - 10-10-2013 at 06:10

There were more than ten.

watson.fawkes - 10-10-2013 at 06:10

One modest thing that would eliminate some of the recurring spam is a URL blacklist. It wouldn't stop everything, but it would get rid of some of the SEO abuse that requires a particular URL to appear widely.

Metacelsus - 10-10-2013 at 10:33

It seems to be that the spam over the last few months has been about the same stuff -- Louis Vuitton fashion stores. Could we identify spam based on subject?

Pyro - 10-10-2013 at 11:05

how about that a members first, say 5 posts need to pass through a mod or semi mod first.
something like a new ''thing'' (damn, I can't find the word, like chemistry in general, orgo chemistry,...) that certain members can access. any new members first 5 posts get sent there pending approval, If its not spam a member can click on [OK] and if it is spam [DELETE].
I have seen this system on another forum and think it is probably the best, It will stop kewls too!
(notice how many kitchen ads there are lately)

bismuthate - 10-10-2013 at 11:22

That sounds nice but what if a troll makes it through and begins deleting posts? Maybe inverted penis will come back.
crap I didn't mean to make that crude and horrible pun sorry.

[Edited on 10-10-2013 by bismuthate]

Pyro - 10-10-2013 at 12:07

well no, only certain members get access. like references and whimsy

bismuthate - 10-10-2013 at 12:19

Yeah I guess I'm just paranoid because he was a troll who ( I Think ) breached our security and temporarily overcame a ban and became a super moderator. How many people would have access?

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