Rise of spam lately

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gebik
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Rise of spam lately

Post by gebik »

Everybode knows, that there is quite a lot of spam lately. I have before some time offered this solution to orudge, however he has not responded. Maybe he overlooked it. So, I am putting it here.
Nice day,
orudge, I think, that everybody has noticed a lot of spam posts lately. It is annoying, if one spam user has made ton of posts, so I came up with an idea.
Would it be possible to not allow new users to submit visible posts until one of forum moderators reads his request auto made with his first post, which is hidden for non moderators now? If that post would be a spam, than his account would not be verified. If that post would be a normal one, account would get verified and post made visible. It will in my opinion reduce spam in forums, while allowing new normal users, however I dont know if that is possible in phpBB.
What do you think about it?

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MLG
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Redirect Left
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Re: Rise of spam lately

Post by Redirect Left »

I have also suggested just not allowing users to post a link in their first post, and if one is detected just refuse to post it, as that'd stop the majority in its tracks, however as you probably have figured, that was rejected too...
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Chrill
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Re: Rise of spam lately

Post by Chrill »

There has not been a rise of spam lately. Maybe you've just been online at a time that does not align with us, but we regularly clear out a lot of posts on a daily basis.

orudge has previously stated that 3rd party spam solutions are a path he isn't keen on going down, and at this rate we moderators do cope with the volumes. If there's a simple way to keep some more spam hidden away, I'd be for it, but I think we already do catch a big chunk of it before they even post.
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kamnet
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Re: Rise of spam lately

Post by kamnet »

You may be noticing more spam posts lately because I've not been able to lurk overnight for the last few months, when much of this spam gets posted. But nothing escapes our gaze. Cleanup takes only a few minutes of our day.
gebik
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Re: Rise of spam lately

Post by gebik »

kamnet wrote: 25 Jun 2021 01:46 Cleanup takes only a few minutes of our day.
Ok, I thought it takes a lot of your time. If it takes a few minutes to clean forums, then complicated solutions are pointless... :)
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Taschi
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Re: Rise of spam lately

Post by Taschi »

I can't say if there's been a "rise of spam lately" but to be brutally honest, there are days where I read more spam posts on here than legitimate, non-spam posts. And I do my best to report these posts, but often they have already been up for hours, and / or stay up for hours.

I understand that the team is all volunteers who have a real life, but this stuff is really immensely annoying and if current phpBB versions offer any feature to mitigate spam, be it holding first posts by new users for moderation, be it a harsher captcha policy, or whatever, I would really appreciate it.
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orudge
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Re: Rise of spam lately

Post by orudge »

Apologies, I have been extremely busy with “real life” lately, but from memory, I don’t think phpBB by default offers much to support the kind of things suggested above. We do have a number of anti-spam mechanisms in place, but unfortunately spammers are it seems able to bypass these (plus who knows how much spam there would be if I turned them off!)
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kamnet
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Re: Rise of spam lately

Post by kamnet »

To be honest phpBB really doesn't do anything to fight spam at all, and the number and quality of third party add-ons have decreased over the years as well as most communications have shifted from desktop/laptop computer-based discussions to mobile. Web-based discussion boards are not at the forefront of technology anymore, and even sites like Reddit are strongly encouraging users to use their mobile-based app rather than visiting discussions in a standard web browser.
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