Is there the possibility of programming a system where all newbie post are kept in a holding corral forum until a few (one or two?) of the many respected members OK's it as legit? (There are currently about 68 respected or higher members.) If a certain number (one or two) of members gives it a 'spam' rating it never gets posted and disappears to a hidden trash file where Scott can review it if needed. If a respected member gives it an OK rating, then it posts immediately but does not advance out of temporary member status. If the post seems really legit then it gets a thumbs-up status and after a certain number of of such posts the newbie exits the temporary member status. After a certain number of spam ratings the newbie is banned. The newbie poster is told up front that all newbie posts must be OK'd before they get posted and that spam posting is not allowed. This message alone would probably stop much of the spam, kind of like the fake cameras in stores.
Just my idea. It would save time and bandwidth caused by dozens of members loading a page only to find a spam posting.
I still like the 30 day - no post idea! Scott could explain that this is to help stop the spammers. A new member could be given the option of posting sooner provided they write a paragraph or two describing their interest in Bessler's wheel. This could be done by a secondary moderator. I nominate Jim. ;)
. I can assure the reader that there is something special behind the stork's bills.
I agree the problem is getting worse and something probably needs to be done. I'm pretty sure it is (miserable) people probably slaving away in a sweatshop somewhere because as far as I know the phpbb captcha technology has not been cracked yet.
The term "CAPTCHA" was coined in 2000 by Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper, and John Langford (all of Carnegie Mellon University). It is an acronym based on the word "capture" and standing for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". Carnegie Mellon University attempted to trademark the term, but the trademark application was abandoned on 21 April 2008.
Yes Jim, those are the strangely shaped letters and numbers you must verify you can read before being allowed to create an account.
I just went through all the new members with only a few posts since about last April and deleted about 30 users and and their posts who were clearly spammers. There didn't seem to be a problem prior to that time. I can try to stay more on top of it in the future, but will probably need to implement a more automated solution.
In the meantime I might consider not allowing links in signatures. That might discourage them from signing up in the first place. Would that bother many people?
I did a quick browse to see how many members put links in their signatures. Ralph was the only member doing so that I found. There might be others that I didn't find in my very quick search. Ralph's link is the same as as in the icon just below his link.
I say this in jest and with a big smile on my face, but have you bothered to click on your own signature? It appears you did indeed do a quick search but strayed from home.
I admit that my signature by some may be considered commercial or spam, but please keep in mind that it is a .org philanthropic link. If Scott feels that it is disruptive I will remove or at least deactivate it.
Also you will find within my 'contact' site a "CAPTCHA" code. Any time someone contacts me I also automatically receive their ISP address in an attachment that pinpoints them.
I do not know how my son set this up but he has the skills to do it. He was a key administrator for Netscape before the 1999 acquisition by AOL.
Please click on http://browser.netscape.com/history to learn the connection to Mozilla and how Netscape users were encouraged to adopt Firefox.
You misunderstood. (Not your first time.) Scott was suggesting to eliminate signatures since that is where most spammers place their spam links. It would keep some of the spammer out. You seem to be one of the few regular members that put a link in your signature, which was my point.
I have nothing in my signature. The signature that you see is a stand alone signature that I could place anywhere.
So eliminating forum signatures would not effect me in the least. The topic here is how to keep spammer out and not about eliminating links.
This to me is all irrelevant as I was only pointing out that your quick search was incomplete, I am not about to make an issue of it. Grimer also has a link in his signature.
Sure, sometimes I misunderstand, but at least I have the integrity to voice my misunderstanding for clarification while others may simply ignore or except that which they do not understand.
I'm going to try a setting where I manually activate new accounts for a while, instead of letting new users activate their own account via email. If the workload is not too great that might be a solution. It's worth a try anyway.
Thanks,
Scott
scott wrote:Yes Jim, those are the strangely shaped letters and numbers you must verify you can read before being allowed to create an account.
I just went through all the new members with only a few posts since about last April and deleted about 30 users and and their posts who were clearly spammers. There didn't seem to be a problem prior to that time. I can try to stay more on top of it in the future, but will probably need to implement a more automated solution.
In the meantime I might consider not allowing links in signatures. That might discourage them from signing up in the first place. Would that bother many people?
Thanks and sorry for the trouble.
Scott
Scott, hi!
You have nothing to be sorry, ok?
You're a perfect owner, ok?
Best regards!
Murilo
I have added a button on the top right of every post to make it easy for people to send me a report about spam or abusive posts. Hopefully this will help.
Thanks,
Scott
icon just below his link.
