Spammer Countermeasures
- Matt_K
- Posts: 4809
- Joined: Mar 21, 2018
Hey all,
Thought I'd run this by everyone. Any objections to the following measures:
1. Restricting viewing the classifieds to only those who are logged in and approved users. This might combat some of the spam we're getting. I suspect there's a single person who already has passed the threshold, but if people keep getting these messages, I have ideas for how to prune the userbase for people who have only 2 post counts.
2. Upping the number of required posts to 3 before you can be contacted, contact others, and view the classifieds.
People have to take reasonable countermeasures, but when people are being spammed for posting WTB ads, gotta do something to keep that to a minimum.
Thought I'd run this by everyone. Any objections to the following measures:
1. Restricting viewing the classifieds to only those who are logged in and approved users. This might combat some of the spam we're getting. I suspect there's a single person who already has passed the threshold, but if people keep getting these messages, I have ideas for how to prune the userbase for people who have only 2 post counts.
2. Upping the number of required posts to 3 before you can be contacted, contact others, and view the classifieds.
People have to take reasonable countermeasures, but when people are being spammed for posting WTB ads, gotta do something to keep that to a minimum.
- BGuttman
- Posts: 7368
- Joined: Mar 22, 2018
I like what you offer. I don't have any better solution, so let's try it.
- Doug_Elliott
- Posts: 4155
- Joined: Mar 22, 2018
I have no idea how many members might be involved in a list like this, but maybe some of us can sort through all who have two, three, four, or five posts and see who looks suspicious. How much trouble would it be to come up with a list of members by how many posts they have, up to five?
- Doug_Elliott
- Posts: 4155
- Joined: Mar 22, 2018
And I suggest no public notices on the forum about any changes we make. If anybody gets terminated for being suspicious, no notice about that either.
- Matt_K
- Posts: 4809
- Joined: Mar 21, 2018
Problem is that I suspect it’s someone who just used it to get access to emails. So maybe 2-3 generic posts and no other activity. The list of people should be easy to generate though.
- Matt_K
- Posts: 4809
- Joined: Mar 21, 2018
Oh my there are 12k members who have <3 posts. A lot of them are actually labeled by the forum software as inactive with 0 posts. I'll go ahead and just drop those unless they registered within the last few days. About 11k of them have 0 posts.
- BGuttman
- Posts: 7368
- Joined: Mar 22, 2018
I used to go through the member list and prune members who had zero posts and a mail address in Russia (.ru). I used to clear out about a page or two every two months. I thought there might be a way to make a suitable 'bot to do that but I couldn't codify what I did to a level I thought could be programmed.
Some of the 0 post members actually come here to learn so a simple pruning of 0 posts may eliminate some real members. We need to find a way to prune the snoops (some of which are 'bots themselves) and leave the legit folks who just like to read. I wish I could come up with a good way to do this.
Some of the 0 post members actually come here to learn so a simple pruning of 0 posts may eliminate some real members. We need to find a way to prune the snoops (some of which are 'bots themselves) and leave the legit folks who just like to read. I wish I could come up with a good way to do this.