Users with less than 5 posts & links

[Jess]

According to this announcement (http://www.virtualteen.org/forums/showthread.php?t=183597) users with less than five posts can't post links. But I still saw a spam post with links posted by someone with one post.

[Miserabilia]

Exactly, I wonder if the 5 post thing is already applied? Maybe they are still working on it or something /:

[Jess]

Announcement doesn't say it outright, but it basically implies that it did, but doesn't seem like it anymore.

[DerBear]

I think we can assume something has gone wrong with instillation of the mod that was used and when Mike is on/has some time I'm sure he'll get around to fixing it or finding out the problem and will try and find a solution.

Until then I don't think we need to panic :P

[britishboy]

I think it should be raised to 50, a spammer will just do 5 stupid posts and then spam, 50 is not worth the effot

[DerBear]

I think it should be raised to 50, a spammer will just do 5 stupid posts and then spam, 50 is not worth the effot

If a bot can't post it's links then it will give up and go away. Rarely will they make 5 with no links attached.

[britishboy]

If a bot can't post it's links then it will give up and go away. Rarely will they make 5 no linked spam posts.

I didnt mean a bot but yes, useless for a bot, I ment people with websites or YouTube channel or sales people for websites, who will manually spam

[DerBear]

I didnt mean a bot but yes, useless for a bot, I ment people with websites or YouTube channel or sales people for websites, who will manually spam

Those people generally aren't our biggest problem, I see more "Bot" spam than I do with what you described.

50 wouldn't be practical because many sections to be active in those sections, do require to post a link such as VTDC, ROTW, TJP etc

I honestly see less "People trying to advertise" than I do bot spam and to be honest we can usually detect them and ban them earlier and honestly spam doesn't take up much of the mods time to delete. I can deal with a spam bot in less than 20 seconds.

This mod is mainly to cut down bot spam as that has been what has caused the most issues for us recently and in the past.

[Jess]

I think we can assume something has gone wrong with instillation of the mod that was used and when Mike is on/has some time I'm sure he'll get around to fixing it or finding out the problem and will try and find a solution.

Until then I don't think we need to panic :P

I assumed that, just had to make sure. Thanks.

[ImCoolBeans]

50 is way too high.

The number of bots seems to have gown down quite significantly. Before the mod was installed we were getting 10 or so bots in one shot, and it was happening often, now that doesn't seem to be happening. I don't really understand everything that goes into a spam bot, but from what I've gathered there seem to be different types, and the bots that are getting around the mod are all of that same type. I think these bots are human assisted in registering and they know a way around the mod -- but I do have to say I believe it's cut down on the amount of spam.

[britishboy]

50 is way too high.

The number of bots seems to have gown down quite significantly. Before the mod was installed we were getting 10 or so bots in one shot, and it was happening often, now that doesn't seem to be happening. I don't really understand everything that goes into a spam bot, but from what I've gathered there seem to be different types, and the bots that are getting around the mod are all of that same type. I think these bots are human assisted in registering and they know a way around the mod -- but I do have to say I believe it's cut down on the amount of spam.

yeah I was reading up on this, I agree they are human assisted bots and they can only perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive , maybe make waiting times for new threads? 1 new thread every 5 or 10 minuets? and a captcha for every new thread for people with under 10 posts? and do you block the ip addresses of banned spammers to stop them from coming back? you could actually do this with all banned people

[ImCoolBeans]

yeah I was reading up on this, I agree they are human assisted bots and they can only perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive , maybe make waiting times for new threads? 1 new thread every 5 or 10 minuets? and a captcha for every new thread for people with under 10 posts? and do you block the ip addresses of banned spammers to stop them from coming back? you could actually do this with all banned people

You can't just ban the IP address of every banned member on a site. That sounds like it will work in theory but there are far too many shared IP addresses for that to work. Certain ISP's, cell towers, hotspots, public internet access points, hotels, etc all have IP addresses that many people share and use frequently. Banning every IP would eventually get a lot of those banned too and that's pretty unfair to users who didn't do anything wrong but will get a banned IP notice when they try to get on the site.

I think a captcha on every post would make the bounce rate of users a lot higher -- meaning that they would spend less time on the forums and they would go back to searching for another site -- something we don't want to happen.

[Rayquaza]

Does this mod disallow a post if it contains links, or just edit out the link? Unless it disallows entire posts, it would be useless because there would still be blocks of text floating around, but with no links.

[ImCoolBeans]

Does this mod disallow a post if it contains links, or just edit out the link? Unless it disallows entire posts, it would be useless because there would still be blocks of text floating around, but with no links.

It rejects the post.

[britishboy]

You can't just ban the IP address of every banned member on a site. That sounds like it will work in theory but there are far too many shared IP addresses for that to work. Certain ISP's, cell towers, hotspots, public internet access points, hotels, etc all have IP addresses that many people share and use frequently. Banning every IP would eventually get a lot of those banned too and that's pretty unfair to users who didn't do anything wrong but will get a banned IP notice when they try to get on the site.

I think a captcha on every post would make the bounce rate of users a lot higher -- meaning that they would spend less time on the forums and they would go back to searching for another site -- something we don't want to happen.

I see what you mean about my ip address suggestion, I didnt know that but I stand by my captcha suggestion, if you have under 50 posts you must do a captcha to start a new thread, theres no real need to start a new thread and they still can if they do the captcha

[ImCoolBeans]

I see what you mean about my ip address suggestion, I didnt know that but I stand by my captcha suggestion, if you have under 50 posts you must do a captcha to start a new thread, theres no real need to start a new thread and they still can if they do the captcha

I think it will hurt the number of reoccurring members. We also just agreed that the majority of these bots are human assisted. Why add a captcha to every post or thread to be a nuisance when it will still be fruitless seeing as bots will be able to get around it. Captchas on forums always get cracked, it even happened here. Captchas fail, I've seen it happen.

[britishboy]

I think it will hurt the number of reoccurring members. We also just agreed that the majority of these bots are human assisted. Why add a captcha to every post or thread to be a nuisance when it will still be fruitless seeing as bots will be able to get around it. Captchas on forums always get cracked, it even happened here. Captchas fail, I've seen it happen.

no one spamming will keep on doing captchas, and I believe they are helped to be signed up and basic programing changed, and how do they fail? have a look at this website, its the market leader, used by fb.
http://www.captcha.net/

[ImCoolBeans]

Captchas fail because we've used them on this site and like I said, got cracked.

[Origami]

I agree with Mike on this.

The Captcha would be a huge pain on new members who are already under levels of moderation and restriction placed on them by bots and perverts. And even then, it would only stop fully automated bots. User-Assisted bots would quickly and effectively sort through the Captchas.

However, I'm curious as to how this new mod works. I just not too long ago had to delete a spam post in my diary from a bot with only one post. And yes, it was loaded full of links.

[ImCoolBeans]

I agree with Mike on this.

The Captcha would be a huge pain on new members who are already under levels of moderation and restriction placed on them by bots and perverts. And even then, it would only stop fully automated bots. User-Assisted bots would quickly and effectively sort through the Captchas.

However, I'm curious as to how this new mod works. I just not too long ago had to delete a spam post in my diary from a bot with only one post. And yes, it was loaded full of links.

Something is clearly wrong with it, I'm not quite sure what it is, though. I've sought out the developer of the mod, hopefully he'll get back to me.

[britishboy]

Captchas fail because we've used them on this site and like I said, got cracked.
yeah computers can read some, but technology has moved on fast and heres and example of what the computer can read http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore
but I do agree it is a large inconvenience for new members

[StoppingTime]

Requested :locked2: