Update on spam threads 1 1

[Scott =)]

Due to the recent spike in spam activity, we've made an update to the boards that hides posts from new members until a moderator has reviewed and approved them. Once a moderator has approved a post by someone, that person will be able to post freely from that point forward, without a moderator needing to intervene.

Good News: That means you shouldn't see any more Korean / Chinese / etc spam threads! 

Bad News: Making legitimate new users wait to have their posts published isn't our favorite thing in the world.

We're working on other solutions to prevent robots from creating accounts / make posts at all, but those updates will  take longer to get done. Once they're done though, we should be able to remove the restriction on new members and put things back the way they were before 

Thanks for your patience and for doing such a good job of reporting the spammers to us!

Scott

[Mr.Mcknowitall]

2 minutes ago, Scott =) said:

Due to the recent spike in spam activity, we've made an update to the boards that hides posts from new members until a moderator has reviewed and approved them. Once a moderator has approved a post by someone, that person will be able to post freely from that point forward, without a moderator needing to intervene.

Good News: That means you shouldn't see any more Korean / Chinese / etc spam threads! 

Bad News: Making legitimate new users wait to have their posts published isn't our favorite thing in the world.

We're working on other solutions to prevent robots from creating accounts / make posts at all, but those updates will  take longer to get done. Once they're done though, we should be able to remove the restriction on new members and put things back the way they were before 

Thanks for your patience and for doing such a good job of reporting the spammers to us!

Scott

Thank You, and I am always available to offer my negotiation skills in these trying times.

[Scott =)]

Note: You could still see spam thread(s) if a spammer created an account in the past and has already made other posts with it. Possible, but unlikely.

[revat]

is there a way you could make a new member jump through a few hoops to prove they are a person (like the picture tests or whatever) or type in some weird characters they see on the screen before they're even allowed to make an account?  I don't know if that will help depending on the type of spammer, just throwing it out there. 

[Scott =)]

Yes, that's one of the options we're exploring 

The delicate part is making sure that those types of obstacles aren't too hard for real people. Those puzzles can lead to a lot of frustration / complaints / etc, but newer versions of the technology are better and could make that a non-issue.

[707comics]

https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/v3beta.html

[DavidTheDavid]

I work for a digital games publishers, and bots routinely defeat recpatcha and other measures. We rely on these tools, but also on manual approval. It’s a real p.i.t.a.

 

 

[Jeffro.]

Eventually the bots will attain AI and then we're all doomed to a flood of fake diploma's, IDs, male enhancement products, and cheap british kitchens 

Edited July 19, 2018 by Jerkfro

[BlowUpTheMoon]

I wonder how this change will affect Stu...

[DeadOne]

1 hour ago, Jerkfro said:

fake diploma's, IDs, male enhancement products, and cheap british kitchens

[lizards2]

On ‎7‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 8:59 AM, revat said:

is there a way you could make a new member jump through a few hoops to prove they are a person (like the picture tests or whatever) or type in some weird characters they see on the screen before they're even allowed to make an account?  I don't know if that will help depending on the type of spammer, just throwing it out there. 

[Idaknow]

On 7/19/2018 at 8:07 AM, Jerkfro said:

Eventually the bots will attain AI and then we're all doomed to a flood of fake diploma's, IDs, male enhancement products, and cheap british kitchens 

It's funny cause its TRUE!!!

[Scott =)]

Update:

We made some adjustments late last week:

1. Posts by new members will show up immediately. They no longer require moderator approval.
2. Members cannot use the chat boards until their email address is verified. This mainly applies to new members, but would also apply to existing members who update their email address on file.
3. New members can only post 3 times in the first 24 hours after initially visiting the boards.

So far, so good. So no Captcha for now 

If we see spammer activity spike back up again, we'll consider additional measures to help keep them at bay.

[Gotham Kid]

They're back !

[joecgcmaniac]

[Gotham Kid]

15 minutes ago, cgcmod8 said:

I have banned some.  Please report any scammers.   

There are still a whole bunch of threads remaining in several Forums...

Edited August 18, 2018 by Gotham Kid

[Scott =)]

3 hours ago, Gotham Kid said:

They're back !

Thanks for the heads up! They're banned and their threads are now hidden.

I've also fixed an issue in the admin settings that was allowing new users to post 5 times in the first day instead of 3. They'll now only be able to post 3 times.

The spammers picked a good time to show back up. Ordinarily, moderators can ban a user and a background process will automatically hide their content a few minutes later. Unfortunately, there's a large background process running (search index) that will prevent any other process from running until it's done. It should be done in about 2 days.

That means that moderators need to ban each user and also manually hide each thread in order for the content to disappear promptly. As you might imagine, this makes the process more tedious for moderators.

We'll continue to monitor this, and evaluate whether we should reinstate admin approval for posts from new users or add some other protection.

Thanks everyone for your patience.

[Gotham Kid]

They keep coming back.

Reported a few today already.

Edited August 19, 2018 by Gotham Kid

[RockMyAmadeus]

I'm excited for this new opportunity at finer Australian universities.

[Jeffro.]

Tons of spam posts this morning.