asked
Spam on the forum
Over 40 pages of spam posts. Is there anything that can be done to creating new user process or maybe a captcha on posts? Thoughts?
70-something spam items in the Moderation queue this morning. Not sure who put them there...
Captchas are ineffective for the most part, they're easily beaten by scripting - to the extent that they're actually more annoying for legitimate users than any semi-competent spammer. The new user process requires verification - there is a human being at the other end patiently adding new accounts for spam that ends up on the site for a couple of minutes at most. Why they find this valuable, I do not know. I have asked the developers for more effective filtering, but so far nothing. I'd rather not complicate the signup process further at the expense of legitimate users, especially as there's very little can be added that would genuinely separate proper users from spammers.
The new filtering is there, which is why the majority is going into Moderation. I'm AFK for three weeks though, so I'm not submitting any tickets to them (for something like deleting all posts in moderation for a user) - they take a lot of input and I don't really have time to manage them while I'm on the road. I'll keep plowing through the moderated posts and adding new terms to the filter - there are some possible additional benefits from a full site upgrade, so I'll schedule that in for when I'm back in the office.
Is it possible for the devs to make it so that the new user process is something like: * Create new account as it is now * Post a question * That question has to have a comment, or a vote, or an answer, or be checked by a mod * Then the user is given freer rein to post more questions Obviously, allowing while still allowing new users to answer questions, make comments, do whatever else they can do now?
Feature request: For mods / admins: Single button to suspend account & delete all users questions & submit IP address to blacklist & give target location to the Orbital Anvil Delivery System?
Why, yes, I *am* getting a little peeved here. How did you know?
Suggestion: What about introducing a rate-limiter for new questions for new users? Say no more than one question per hour until a certain karma level (not too high - 20?)
The devs are looking at applying an additional level of filtering.
For now, anyone with less than a certain karma level is going straight into moderation. There should be a deployment in the next day or two for a more permanent solution.
I'm noting some questions from spam users going onto the main page, others (even I believe by the same user) go to moderation. as @ThomasRushton says, this isn't perhaps working as expected
Thanks. It seems to have reduced the amount of garbage - at least, there seems to be less in the moderation queue over the last few days than there was in the spammy posts pile a few days earlier.
It appears that this is no longer working. Have the devs implemented a fix? Because it isn't working...
@DaveC - the "Delete all posts for this user" option only seems to hit the live posts, and ignores the stuff in moderation queue. Can this be fixed / altered? Cheers.
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