Revenge of the Spam-Bots!

[Gary Huff]

There's been quite a resurgence of spam here recently, and I recall some mention of making a minimum post count for new users before they are allowed to post new topics. Is this still on the table? Seems like it might help matters.

[Jason Ramsey]

there is a post requirement before you can edit your sig, send private messages, edit your profile. but, not before you can start a thread.

Spam is nothing new. Doesn't seem any more than usual. Never ending battle. Just keep reporting it and we'll knock it out. It's easier to see spam when they post it as a new thread vs. when they post in an existing thread anyway.

[Kevin Vega]

One suggestion I've seen on website coding forums is, placing an extra field in the registration form, setting it as hidden via CSS (display: hidden;) so a human won't see it, and then check to see if it has a value in the processing script... if it's filled in, it's more than likely a bot.

[Jason Ramsey]

Thanks. will look into it when I cycle back to dvxuser for the next round of upgrades sometime in the next month or so.

[Egg Born Son]

Whoa, spammers getting keen. 3 full pages of spam on the new posts list.

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

^ yeah. Never seen so many in so short time.

[Khachik Mkrtchyan]

Well, agree. They are active when moderators are offline. Only this week I reported maybe more than 10 times. Also Im really curious how can one be a spam moderator? Im willing to spend my free time to clean dvxuser from them. Especially I'm online most of the time at night when most or none moderators are online.

[Jason Ramsey]

I'm going to put a limitation on new members posting urls soon. That should help a little.

Also, fyi. You only have to report each spammer (username) one time. You don't have to report every one of their posts. If we have one from that user, we can get all of their posts in a single motion. we don't need to find all of their posts individually. I say that, b/c everytime someone reports a post that hasn't yet been reported, it creates a new thread in our reported posts section that all the mods get. So, if you see one spammer who has spammed a lot of posts, just report one of those posts, and that will be sufficient. Thanks.

Later,
Jason

[Khachik Mkrtchyan]

I'm going to put a limitation on new members posting urls soon. That should help a little.

Also, fyi. You only have to report each spammer (username) one time. You don't have to report every one of their posts. If we have one from that user, we can get all of their posts in a single motion. we don't need to find all of their posts individually. I say that, b/c everytime someone reports a post that hasn't yet been reported, it creates a new thread in our reported posts section that all the mods get. So, if you see one spammer who has spammed a lot of posts, just report one of those posts, and that will be sufficient. Thanks.

Later,
Jason
Thanks Jason, didn't know that. I think I made spam mods crazy because of that.

[Jason Ramsey]

ok. added some new spam protection. should help keep more of them from getting through.

I've also added a new permissions restriction that moderates (makes invisible) any post that has a url included from people who have not met the required minimum post limit yet. So, any spam posted here will not be visible. the unfortunate side-effect is - if you guys can't see it - you can't report it. but, we'll see how it goes.

[unadog]

Thanks Jason!

I have also been reporting each post.

There has been someone coming on around 2:00 am EST lately and posting 3-4 new topics. They have somewhat incomprehensible garbage texts, each with 3 garbage links. The links "pretend" to go to a review of a TV show, movie, etc., but you can tell by the URL that it is bogus.

I missed out on the 3 pages today! Never ending battle.


Thanks for a **great** forum, and a great community Jason!

Cheers,
Michael

[Jason Ramsey]

you guys shouldn't have any spam to report before long. just anyone that might have made it through before. Virtually, every other spammer from here on out, that actually gets past registration will have their posts moderated b/c they are sure to include links.

and, the good news is, we are streaming to a database of known spammers which is checking for any ip or email address matches and denying them registration up-front. It has already blocked a couple of registrations.

So, between those two things, we will (hopefully) see a drastic reduction in spam on dvxuser.

Thanks for being so diligent with reporting of spam. It is much appreciated and helps us get to it faster as we all receive email notifications when you report something.

[Egg Born Son]

Awesome, fine work Jason. And while a lot has been getting through lately it always disappears within a couple of hours at the most, appreciate the hard work on the part of the moderators. This is the only forum I've been on that puts this much effort into site maintenance.

[kylevant]

Yeah, was actually wondering about this recently. Did feel like a surge, but it seems to have improved now. Great job!

[Gary Huff]

Did feel like a surge, but it seems to have improved now.

There definitely was a surge, I guess the economic climate is hitting the spammers pretty hard too. :beer:

[12quidkidinnit]

I'm a moderator on Lockergnomes and every time I log on there seems to be more and more spam. The latest thing seems to be fake passport adverts and trainers. I mean, who in their right mind is going to click on the links in these spam posts anyway.
If I wanted either of the above, the last place I'm going to look is on a computer help forum.