What's up with all the spam posts?

Luke

@brad said in What's up with all the spam posts?:

Totally happy to make changes if there's a consensus among mods and users. Seems like an easy fix would be to rate limit first day new threads to something like 3.

It seems like the spam has stopped anyway knock on wood or I missed it. But sounds like a good idea.

DavidPS

A limit of 3 new threads for the first day is a very generous compromise and it will get the job done.

ThinPicking

@brad said in What's up with all the spam posts?:

a consensus

DavidPS

Well so much for the idea that the the spam was only going to be 200 new posts at a go.

ThinPicking

*006 behaviour. Imposter!

Please ignore/block them for now. I'll clean them up when I'm at a bigger screen.

Luke

I liked the basketball engraving machine better than the pellet machine.

Peatful

@Luke said in What's up with all the spam posts?:

I liked the basketball engraving machine better than the pellet machine.

Based

jamezb46

Why can't membership to the forum be more difficult to get so that only humans can enter?

alfredoolivas

The laziness is insane.

alfredoolivas

@jamezb46 Or as someone said before hand... litterally cap the posts for a new account to a few posts and comments for the first day. If a real account wants to post more, he or she can wait a day, it's not deep.

ThinPicking

@alfredoolivas said in What's up with all the spam posts?:

@jamezb46 Or as someone said before hand... litterally cap the posts for a new account to a few posts and comments for the first day. If a real account wants to post more, he or she can wait a day, it's not deep.

Another vicious bot attack this morning @brad'ster. If this is possible I think it's a good idea.

alfredoolivas

@ThinPicking Hell, even restrict the amount of comments and posts an account can make within the first 2 hours of creation!

The most notorious spam accounts will create all their spam within an hour and never login again afterwards.

For example, yori007 was created, made a bunch of mess within the first hour of creation, and didn't log back in after the first hour

Luke

I sense a little emphasis on machines here.

ThinPicking

It's quite fascinating really. This. This is the plan apparently.

ThinPicking

@alfredoolivas said in What's up with all the spam posts?:

The laziness is insane.

Laziness or aversion to actual speech. Even that which is written and 'anon'.

DavidPS

Well, it looks like the admin team has been busy banning new users. 8 new users (by my quick count) were banned within a few hours. Thank you.
https://bioenergetic.forum/users

The spamsters seem intent on being mischievous.

I am wondering to myself if (or how) the situation will escalate.

DavidPS

@alfredoolivas said in What's up with all the spam posts?:

and didn't log back in after the first hour

The account may have been quickly banned to prevent them from creating additional new posts.

brad

I added a few anti-spam provisions.

CAPTCHA for new users. (Not sure if this worked.)
New users have their posts placed in a queue requiring manual approval before they're posted to the main page. This can be avoided if you confirm your email address or get 2 "reputation" points (still not quite sure what those are).

Let me know if this helps. Will roll them back if unpopular.

Kilgore

@brad said in What's up with all the spam posts?:

New users have their posts placed in a queue requiring manual approval before they're posted to the main page. This can be avoided if you confirm your email address or get 2 "reputation" points (still not quite sure what those are).

The reputation points are upvotes.

NoeticJuice

@brad said in What's up with all the spam posts?:

"reputation" points

I don't think this is beneficial. Being able to vote on posts can further discourage people from posting things that go against consensus. But those very same posts can promote learning and lead to interesting and beneficial discoveries, even if the content of those posts are inaccurate.