[MitchellO]

Originally Posted by Rocco Augusto

one thing i noticed about spammers, especially after last night, they like to put the link to the website they are spamming for in their profile. that would be one way we could nip it in the butt. the best solution though would be the one presented by jason, we just moderate the first 5-10 post from a new user. if they're a spammer and they try to spam and see that it won't even show up on the board because it is being moderated then it would deter them from sticking around until we approve them so they can spam.

Yeah thats a good idea.

[MitchellO]

Originally Posted by Rocco Augusto

one thing i noticed about spammers, especially after last night, they like to put the link to the website they are spamming for in their profile. that would be one way we could nip it in the butt. the best solution though would be the one presented by jason, we just moderate the first 5-10 post from a new user. if they're a spammer and they try to spam and see that it won't even show up on the board because it is being moderated then it would deter them from sticking around until we approve them so they can spam.

Yeah thats a good idea.

[sojourner753]

Originally Posted by Rocco Augusto

see the problem with that is it just makes the user do more work. personally i would love to see a method in place where the users of the board are not inconvenienced. i do not mind ding a little more back-end work if it means we can keep the board spam free and the users happy

I suppose inconvenience is a potential risk, but in this case its a small one. IMO. I would rather have you guys working the great content of the site than hunting after spammers when there may be a process that can be put on cruise control.

If a take an systems architects perspective how could a 5 post probation scale? We want ThoughtsMedia sites to grow as fast as possible. If we're lucky, there's no way that a person or person(s) could moderate every new member and still keep the community moving.

I say if there's an applications solution, then it should be given weight over any manual solution. Assume the automated solution then determine if there are any "gotchas" lurking.

5 extra keystrokes (or stylus taps) is a much better solution than treating new members like criminals (see DRM) up front. Thats my take anyway.

[MitchellO]

Originally Posted by sojourner753

5 extra keystrokes (or stylus taps) is a much better solution than treating new members like criminals (see DRM) up front. Thats my take anyway.

:lol:

[Kris Kumar]

Way to go Rocco! 8)

When it comes to suggestions to fight spam:
- I don't think moderating the posts of newbies or anyone is an easy job. :-( But push comes to shove, I like the idea of moderating the initial 5 posts by newbies.

- What I would like to see is that the bulletin board software be smart enough to handle spam. Like for e.g. when a user posts a reply or a new post, the software should check the body of the post with the previous post, if they match then it should block it or queue it up for moderatation. I know spammers might become smart and start enter some jobberish at the end. But it should tackle simple spams, definitely the one that we saw last night.

[sojourner753]

Originally Posted by Kris Kumar

- What I would like to see is that the bulletin board software be smart enough to handle spam. Like for e.g. when a user posts a reply or a new post, the software should check the body of the post with the previous post, if they match then it should block it or queue it up for moderatation. I know spammers might become smart and start enter some jobberish at the end. But it should tackle simple spams, definitely the one that we saw last night.

I guess best case would be some kind of Bayesian (sp?) algorithm or intelligence like in some email spam solutions. Although the false positves on a forum would probably be more of an annoyance than in someone's personal email inbox.

[MitchellO]

Originally Posted by sojourner753

I guess best case would be some kind of Bayesian (sp?) algorithm or intelligence like in some email spam solutions. Although the false positves on a forum would probably be more of an annoyance than in someone's personal email inbox.

Use whatever algorithm google uses for spam on Gmail. Its excellent!!

[bradmatejo]

Originally Posted by hotdram

You just have to find what goes well with spam to enjoy it

Shiner Bock rules!!!

Oh look what I found in my garage. No idea how it got there Just don't tell the Shiner sheriff!

[Kirkaiya]

Originally Posted by sojourner753

One solution that is can think of is to display an image of characters that a user must rekey before successfully pressing the submit button.

I've seen other sites pair with user name and password, but that may not work here because we have the option to stay logged in.

The image can probably be scaled like any other images for the mobile version.

I'm not sure what the expense to this would be or if there are free versions of this particular verification strategy. But by using this, you don't have to necessarily insert a human (admin) in between the legitimate posters and the community. Plus at most, its maybe 5 extra key strokes.

This is the first thing I thought of when I saw the list of choices, and is the "something else" I voted for.

If it's just a 3-digit number that the user types in a text-box that sits just above the message-box (multi-line textbox) field, then I don't consider it an inconvenience really. There are some other forums I post on that already do this, and it seems to be very effective (most script-kiddies aren't going to run the image-recognition software required to defeat even very plain numbers in an image).

For back-end tactics, another trick is not allowing duplicate posts - that is, if a submitted post is an exact match for another post, deny the post (of course, if spammers just randomly modify their posts with some gibberish, that's not going to work either).

What I'd really like to see is a heuristics-based spam-filter used of the type used in some mail-server software being made available as a php module, or .net library, whatever, so that it could be implemented on forums like this. Come to think of it, that's such a good idea, I think somebody must have done it?

[Kirkaiya]

wow - i should really read all the responses through to the end before posting, since everything I just wrote above was already posted with better spelling by other people

ops:

[Mike Temporale]

Originally Posted by Kirkaiya

wow - i should really read all the responses through to the end before posting, since everything I just wrote above was already posted with better spelling by other people

ops:

No worries. It helps to see that a lot of you are thinking the same thing. So maybe we should too.