SCVJeff wrote:
OutdoorPhotographer wrote:
SCVJeff wrote:
What needs to happen to the shigrin of anyone new and needing an immediate answer, is to simply cache the new members post until it can be cleared by a Mod. That means it takes twice the time to post.
1- to sign up
2- to come back and do damage
Can't hurt..
Btw, this is not a Bot, otherwise we would really have a problem
How do you know it's not a bot? Curious? Seems a waste of time to pay someone to manually post this junk.
Problem is approving posts is labor intensive for mods.
how do you know it is?
Someone, something needs to sign up, then select a category to post, then post. It's not as simple as an email or Yahoo blast.
Since none of us know that business model (at least not me), you can't say it's a waste of time. Don't forget that a LOT of this stuff comes out of Russa and Africa where $.05 will buy dinner.
So what's worse: 'x' number of Mods here approving new members (I never said all posts), or spending the time to delete the spam posts, especially when we get the occasional blast of them ? Right now these spammers get exposure and I guarantee someone here looks at them before they are deleted, and that's all it takes to realize there are eyeballs here to be had.
Approving new members is common on lots of forums for this reason
First, I was low key using "curious." I specifically did that to not be accusatory but to see why you thought it was a human spammer. You have a good point about cheap labor in Russia, China, etc. But, recent Russian cyber attacks were a distributed attack where they can use infected computers of unaware bystanders to launch denial of service attacks.
Yes, bots are capable for registering and posting spam. This may be humans but could be bots. Am I an expert no, but do I study cyber attacks as part of my job, yes so I'm not shooting in the dark about bots. Maybe I misread your post and took emotion that wasn't there. One of the problems with forums. My apologies if I did and either way, just trying to look for solutions.
So, on to another solution:
With the number of new members we have, it is more work to approve new members than delete the spam. That said, this article describes ways to defeat both bot and human spammers and has a good idea. The forum could require approval before posting links. That would allow new members to post same day which is good for the community but defeat spammers.
Depedending on the software limitations of the forum, one easy way to limit links is to require 100 posts (or 50, or whatever is reasonable) before a new member can post a link.
9 Ways to Eliminate Spam from your Community Forum
