Stop the madness!!!

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Moderator: MaxCoderz Staff

Activate admin-check?

Yes
5
56%
No
4
44%
 
Total votes: 9

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kv83
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Stop the madness!!!

Post by kv83 »

Yes, as you can see they figured out our anti-spam-bot-mod. It didn't thake them too long :roll: also it seems that they are hiring people to register and advertise. So how to stop them once and for all? If you got any clever idea's, i would glad to hear them.

The only option I can think of is to turn on the "activate account by admin" option. this way we can "check" whether a user is valid or not.

I would like to know how you guys think about that? (Please also post why you think so when you vote :) )
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Post by coelurus »

I say no, because frankly, spam is less irritating than having to wait getting a registration confirmed.

What are your current anti-spam measures? What about letting users be activated immediately and then, whenever an admin gets some spare time, check newly registered members. If a user looks suspect, remove the user and all started threads or posts (maybe put all of it in a separate section of the forum called "Junkies?" :) ).
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Post by kv83 »

No, that won't do. People only register to get their link here to get high in google. So by allowing them to post, they achieve their goal.

I know it's rather irritating, on the other hand almost everyone of the communit is already signed up :P (to bad for new members though)

We took already measures like not allowing to signatures and website-links in your profile before you post 5 times. Also we try to delete all users and dissalow their name in the future. However, that is manually work and can take up some time ... 2~3 hours a week, which could be spend on rather more intresting/importent stuff :)
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Jim e
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Post by Jim e »

well...Rezek came up with an oversimplified method to beat the bots from registering. Basically if you include something that is new that bots aren't going to recognize in the registration form, then a bot can't register. Ours is maybe to simple, yet is effective, we have had only 1 advertiser register and he didn't seem to post any links, just handed out a lot of info. So human poster or exceedingly clever bot.

But in any case, we've been using ours for just a little over 2 weeks now, and only 1 bot has registered. Although our number of New forum members has almost completely stopped, its nice not being molested by spam bots offering me a bigger penis.


Also You should kill the already existing bots in your member list, some are just ticking time bombs. I don't believe the bot mod looks at old forum members. I went through our list and killed off about 60 people. If the ratio holds up, you being three times as popular, 180. Good luck with that. :D

Then there's always just having the staff give the old Evil Eye to all new registrants. Image
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kv83
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Post by kv83 »

yeah, I already started to kill some members with 0 posts a strange profiles (like hobbies: renting cars).....

However, your mod won't last long. Bot-makers will adapt if, it fails to often on your site... so that is a ticking-bomb aswell. Also there a lot "human-bots".

I hate all those guys.
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Post by coelurus »

The only way to truly filter registrants is to impose restrictions on members. I guess this forum is intended to be rather open, so spam will always get through.

Google-cheating is of course sad, but it's ultimately a problem that Google should tackle. Since spam will get through anyway, there's no point letting small forums like this adapt to how Google figure out what sites are important. Cynical but logical, that's computers in two adjectives :)
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Jim e
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Post by Jim e »

yeah, I already started to kill some members with 0 posts a strange profiles (like hobbies: renting cars).....

However, your mod won't last long. Bot-makers will adapt if, it fails to often on your site... so that is a ticking-bomb aswell. Also there a lot "human-bots".

I hate all those guys.
How do you know they are human?

The whole idea is that bot makers don't give a sh*t about little sites. Theres probably thousands of failed attempts for all these bots, I doubt a few from us will cause attention. Yes it will eventually fail, but for now it is a working solution.


Edit:
I put this in to kill potential bots faster.
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.ph ... 23#2208423
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kv83
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Post by kv83 »

uuuh. that seems like a fine mod. I wonder if it updates the "dissallowed names" list aswell. even cooler would be the option that it deletes all posts by that user aswell :)
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Post by CompWiz »

I think admin check would work. Expecially now that we have 3 of them, once someone registers, they would probably be admin-approved pretty fast. Could you make it so all they require is the approval of any of the staff? There's usually someone on from that category, and that would allow new people to be allowed with very little delay.
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Post by crzyrbl »

If its a bot and not a human, howsabout using that picture idea. Ive seen more and more forums start using it lately.
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Post by anykey »

I'm not sure how you would validate if the person is or isn't going to spam...it's so easy to lie online.
What I can't figure out is why the spam topics just get locked, but never deleted! All they do is take up space.
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Jim e
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Post by Jim e »

Thats a good point, How will you know a bot from a real person? Names can't really be trusted. Like dg10050, I had my finger on the button to delete him, but he turned out to be real.

Bots are smarter these days, they aren't filling in the forms in the profile. Its really just a name now. Unless its sexygirl129102, i dont see how you could tell.

By the way, does any one have sexygirl129102 email, she sounds hot.

Edit:
AngelyXXX
hmmm?

the anti bot mod just sucks.
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kv83
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Post by kv83 »

You can tell 9 of 10 times by the intrests and hobbies :)

As I said, they let real people do the job for a great share of their registrations. This means you can't do anything with images or other simple stuff. Maybe require them to write a z80 routine 8)

@Anykey: Yeah, stupid us. But we delete topics now, so it should get cleaner with time again :)
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Post by CompWiz »

kv83 wrote:Maybe require them to write a z80 routine 8)
Don't you think the Omnimaga people hate us enough already? :lol:
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Post by Jim e »

Well keep it simple, Like name 6 or more ways to return to the calling function. I just don't like the idea of a delay in registration, but if you want to force all potential new members into revsofts opened arms, fine by me. :twisted:
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