Hey Escapist! How about this to help prevent spam?

[SmugFrog]

Would it be possible to make a mandatory requirement of something like 10 replies/posts before a user is allowed to create a topic? Something like that would at least help with preventing these flood of posts. Obviously we'd still likely get spam within individual topics that we could report but at least the pages won't be new topic spam as easily.

* - unless it's already a policy for that, it's been a while since I created my account.

 

[JoJo]

Wouldn't be a bad idea, regrettably we no longer have a tech team to implement changes like that.

 

[bluegate]

Would it be possible to make a mandatory requirement of something like 10 replies/posts before a user is allowed to create a topic? Something like that would at least help with preventing these flood of posts. Obviously we'd still likely get spam within individual topics that we could report but at least the pages won't be new topic spam as easily.

* - unless it's already a policy for that, it's been a while since I created my account.

To be honest, I never liked those rules on forums.

It has happened a couple of times to me that I wanted to ask a question to a certain community, made an account but then found out that I first had to have X amount of posts before I was able to actually ask my question, at which point I would close the page and never come back.

With no Tech Team around, this is purely hypothetical, but personally, I would suggest adding a reCAPTCHA to the New Thread page.

They are ridiculously easy to add for developers and are very easy to solve for users. Best case scenario is that the user has to simply click a box, worst case scenario is that the user has to click on a few images in order to identify them.

One could even set it up in a manner that the captcha would only show up if one has fewer than 10 posts, this would keep spambots from posting and still allow legitimate users to post topics without having to first make 10 spam posts in other topics.

Assuming that the recent spam topics are made by spam bots and not humans manually creating the posts, that is. If they are being posted manually, then they could easily solve the captcha and post threads anyway, but they could also create 10 spam replies and then proceed to spam threads, so either system is fucked if we are dealing with manual spammers.

 

[tippy2k2]

Unfortunately that would likely not help.

There have been a few occasions where the spambot goes nuts while we're not on and can spit out dozens of posts in a hour. It would be just as easy for them to just spit out their garbage on a normal post (and funny enough would make our job much harder as it's easy to see which topics are Spam and we have mass functions that let us cut down multiple threads at once. If they were buried in topics, we would have to search for the posts individually to kill).

So if anything, I appreciate spambots creating a bunch of new topics; much easier for me to deal with

 

[IceForce]

Are IP bans still a thing here?

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I would assume that most of the recent spam is all coming from the same IP.

 

[SmugFrog]

Wouldn't be a bad idea, regrettably we no longer have a tech team to implement changes like that.

Ah well, just a thought.

With no Tech Team around, this is purely hypothetical, but personally, I would suggest adding a reCAPTCHA to the New Thread page.

Yeah, never bothered me typing it in and at times it was humorous the word that would come up as it related to the post.

So if anything, I appreciate spambots creating a bunch of new topics; much easier for me to deal with

I guess it would rely on users to self report more - but I'm not sure how that works from your end, I assumed you would get a notification and link direct to the topic. That guy in the gaming forum went on for over an hour the other day.

Are IP bans still a thing here?

With proxies, would that even be effective? But I guess at some point you would have them all listed. I just don't want to see the community torn apart by these guys. I enjoy each day coming to see what's new with our little community and it's frustrating to see something like that happen.

 

[bluegate]

Unfortunately that would likely not help.

There have been a few occasions where the spambot goes nuts while we're not on and can spit out dozens of posts in a hour. It would be just as easy for them to just spit out their garbage on a normal post (and funny enough would make our job much harder as it's easy to see which topics are Spam and we have mass functions that let us cut down multiple threads at once. If they were buried in topics, we would have to search for the posts individually to kill).

So if anything, I appreciate spambots creating a bunch of new topics; much easier for me to deal with

Seeing as we are all just listing hypothetical fixes here, the Escapist should add an option to the Moderator's Admin Panel that allows them to purge all posts from a certain user, then you would only need to identify a spammer, click the Purge button and it'd be like they never existed.

 

[IceForce]

Seeing as we are all just listing hypothetical fixes here, the Escapist should add an option to the Moderator's Admin Panel that allows them to purge all posts from a certain user, then you would only need to identify a spammer, click the Purge button and it'd be like they never existed.

That's already a thing. We know this because user accounts have been 'purged' in the past, - actual real user accounts, ie: not spambots. (Hydra's many accounts got that treatment, and Topaz would be another good example too.)

So yeah, it's functionality that already exists. Whether the moderators can do this themselves though, is another matter.

 

[tippy2k2]

Unfortunately that would likely not help.

There have been a few occasions where the spambot goes nuts while we're not on and can spit out dozens of posts in a hour. It would be just as easy for them to just spit out their garbage on a normal post (and funny enough would make our job much harder as it's easy to see which topics are Spam and we have mass functions that let us cut down multiple threads at once. If they were buried in topics, we would have to search for the posts individually to kill).

So if anything, I appreciate spambots creating a bunch of new topics; much easier for me to deal with

Seeing as we are all just listing hypothetical fixes here, the Escapist should add an option to the Moderator's Admin Panel that allows them to purge all posts from a certain user, then you would only need to identify a spammer, click the Purge button and it'd be like they never existed.

That's already a thing. We know this because user accounts have been 'purged' in the past, - actual real user accounts, ie: not spambots. (Hydra's many accounts got that treatment, and Topaz would be another good example too.)

So yeah, it's functionality that already exists. Whether the moderators can do this themselves though, is another matter.

To my knowledge, someone above our paygrade has to do that (or a Mod could go through every post individually if they were feeling vindictive enough I suppose) but I don't believe we have a "Purge" button to nuke a user from orbit.

Either that or no one showed me the nuke button. That's probably for the best though as I'd probably manage to accidentally wipe someone from existence

So if anything, I appreciate spambots creating a bunch of new topics; much easier for me to deal with

I guess it would rely on users to self report more - but I'm not sure how that works from your end, I assumed you would get a notification and link direct to the topic. That guy in the gaming forum went on for over an hour the other day.

For a peak behind the curtain...

We do get links when they're reported but the individual posts get dealt with one at a time that way where we can wipe multiple topics at once when needed. I mean, it's not way more work to do it individually but wiping 15 posts would probably take me five minutes where wiping 15 threads would take me about thirty seconds.

 

[JoJo]

Are IP bans still a thing here?

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I would assume that most of the recent spam is all coming from the same IP.

I checked a few days ago, and the recent spam accounts all have different IP addresses, though sometimes they will have three out of four numbers in common. Seems they're already prepared for IP bans.

 

[Bad Jim]

I suggest that new users' posts don't become visible until a mod approves them.

Or if you think that would discourage new users, allow people with 1000+ posts to hide their threads/posts until a mod approves them.

 

[CaitSeith]

At least I'm glad that the spam gets promptly deleted. I woe the day when the Escapist doesn't have the resources to even do that!

 

[pookie101]

but you cant stop the spam.. how will i find advice for a marriage or someone to do black magic?

 

[SmugFrog]

but you cant stop the spam.. how will i find advice for a marriage or someone to do black magic?

I've been meaning to talk to you about that I have some moneys for you since I work from home money making $25257 last week by mining for fish but I need your account # and some information to send your deposit free vacation.

I suggest that new users' posts don't become visible until a mod approves them.

Or if you think that would discourage new users, allow people with 1000+ posts to hide their threads/posts until a mod approves them.

That's a great idea, kind of limits the immediate interaction the new users get with the rest of the community and/or gives those of us that just won't go away a method of self-screening spam.

At least I'm glad that the spam gets promptly deleted. I woe the day when the Escapist doesn't have the resources to even do that!

It doesn't seem as fast as it should be though, as it lasts at least an hour. When I created this topic I believe that massive amount of spam I saw had been up for 2-3 hours. I know that there can't be a mod active at every moment - but it seems like there could be either more mods or mods that have different periods of activity. It's not hard if someone is on their computer a lot to have a second window open auto-refreshing every bit to see if there's any strange activity. Honestly it's disheartening to me to see this stuff. Today I removed my Xbox Live, Steam, and Facebook account links because I really don't want to be bombarded in those locations - and if these guys can just walk in and setup an account they could be just going down the list of users and gathering info. Honestly that could happen on any site and not just with spammers, but it makes me feel like The Escapist isn't as secure or active of a community anymore. When our forums start to fill up with spam, more people are going to leave - going to I don't know where. I came here from Gamefaqs and I was happy to see the modding enforcement here for petty arguments and insults. That and it's one of the few gaming forums I can still access at work.

TL;DR: You can't chew gum with your hair on fire.

 

[tippy2k2]

but you cant stop the spam.. how will i find advice for a marriage or someone to do black magic?

I've been meaning to talk to you about that I have some moneys for you since I work from home money making $25257 last week by mining for fish but I need your account # and some information to send your deposit free vacation.

I suggest that new users' posts don't become visible until a mod approves them.

Or if you think that would discourage new users, allow people with 1000+ posts to hide their threads/posts until a mod approves them.

That's a great idea, kind of limits the immediate interaction the new users get with the rest of the community and/or gives those of us that just won't go away a method of self-screening spam.

At least I'm glad that the spam gets promptly deleted. I woe the day when the Escapist doesn't have the resources to even do that!

It doesn't seem as fast as it should be though, as it lasts at least an hour. When I created this topic I believe that massive amount of spam I saw had been up for 2-3 hours. I know that there can't be a mod active at every moment - but it seems like there could be either more mods or mods that have different periods of activity. It's not hard if someone is on their computer a lot to have a second window open auto-refreshing every bit to see if there's any strange activity. Honestly it's disheartening to me to see this stuff. Today I removed my Xbox Live, Steam, and Facebook account links because I really don't want to be bombarded in those locations - and if these guys can just walk in and setup an account they could be just going down the list of users and gathering info. Honestly that could happen on any site and not just with spammers, but it makes me feel like The Escapist isn't as secure or active of a community anymore. When our forums start to fill up with spam, more people are going to leave - going to I don't know where. I came here from Gamefaqs and I was happy to see the modding enforcement here for petty arguments and insults. That and it's one of the few gaming forums I can still access at work.

TL;DR: You can't chew gum with your hair on fire.

I can only speak so much about it but right now, there is a bit of a dead zone. We are currently working on getting a few new Mods who are specifically active in those dead zone.

Within the next few weeks as new Mods get put in place (combined with the IP Ban system we're working on with the staff), I think Spam issues will be a lot better.

 

[tippy2k2]

Unfortunately that would likely not help.

There have been a few occasions where the spambot goes nuts while we're not on and can spit out dozens of posts in a hour. It would be just as easy for them to just spit out their garbage on a normal post (and funny enough would make our job much harder as it's easy to see which topics are Spam and we have mass functions that let us cut down multiple threads at once. If they were buried in topics, we would have to search for the posts individually to kill).

So if anything, I appreciate spambots creating a bunch of new topics; much easier for me to deal with

I'll accept capchas for every post at this point. It's gotten so ridiculous.

Hopefully it won't have to come to that. We have stuff cooking behind the scenes so hopefully, that will help either fix it or at least greatly drop the bot rate.