TR Forums

Is there something that can be done about the annoying person that keeps making posts with links to videos and stuff? The annoying posts get removed pretty fast but preventing them in the first place would be nice. I know blocking a ISP number does not work as well as it used to, since they can change the number pretty easily, but what about blocking any connections from the internet service provider that this person is using? I know its cutting off everyone and not just the guilty party but maybe the innocent will pressure the ISP to fix the problem.

I am probably showing my ignorance but that's one of the main reasons I visit this forum, to learn what I don't know.

I don't think the spammer is a person, but a bot (or bots). I know there's a thread about it somethwere, as well as a discussion on the difficulties of preventing bots from posting. The best thing you can do is immediately report the thread. As soon as a mod sees it, they can kill the account and all the threads by that bot account will dissappear.

superjawes wrote:

I don't think the spammer is a person, but a bot (or bots). I know there's a thread about it somethwere, as well as a discussion on the difficulties of preventing bots from posting. The best thing you can do is immediately report the thread. As soon as a mod sees it, they can kill the account and all the threads by that bot account will dissappear.

Ding ding ding.

The other takeaway is not to post a response in a SPAM thread. Makes cleaning it up more difficult.

Captain Ned wrote:

superjawes wrote:

I don't think the spammer is a person, but a bot (or bots). I know there's a thread about it somethwere, as well as a discussion on the difficulties of preventing bots from posting. The best thing you can do is immediately report the thread. As soon as a mod sees it, they can kill the account and all the threads by that bot account will dissappear.

Ding ding ding.

The other takeaway is not to post a response in a SPAM thread. Makes cleaning it up more difficult.

That much I figured, hence the new topic.

Could it be made more difficult to register for a bot by adding in a tool where they have to enter in some letters and numbers on a background of squiggly lines and such? Not sure what those are called for sure but I see them on other forums registration process and it seems to work.

Khali wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

superjawes wrote:

I don't think the spammer is a person, but a bot (or bots). I know there's a thread about it somethwere, as well as a discussion on the difficulties of preventing bots from posting. The best thing you can do is immediately report the thread. As soon as a mod sees it, they can kill the account and all the threads by that bot account will dissappear.

Ding ding ding.

The other takeaway is not to post a response in a SPAM thread. Makes cleaning it up more difficult.

That much I figured, hence the new topic.

Could it be made more difficult to register for a bot by adding in a tool where they have to enter in some letters and numbers on a background of squiggly lines and such? Not sure what those are called for sure but I see them on other forums registration process and it seems to work.

I'd be ok with this. Just don't make it one of those hard to read images (where squiggly line goes right through the letter so it distorts the letter)

Khali wrote:

Captain Ned wrote:

Could it be made more difficult to register for a bot by adding in a tool where they have to enter in some letters and numbers on a background of squiggly lines and such? Not sure what those are called for sure but I see them on other forums registration process and it seems to work.

Yes, it's possible to add a CAPTCHA to the registration process (maybe TR does this now, it's been a while since I've registered~), but the other thing TR tries to avoid is the use of plugins or mods to the default board setup, as this greatly complicates upgrading the forum to harden it against security issues.

We've already discussed this to death in the other topic:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=79585

TR has automatic bot protections (you can see it for yourself when creating new account), unfortunately they do nothing against "human bots" who can actually understand English well enough to answer the "challenge" questions... Would've been awesome if there was a restriction for posting any links for new accounts, but I guess it's not possible with the current phpBB version...

JohnC wrote:

Would've been awesome if there was a restriction for posting any links for new accounts, but I guess it's not possible with the current phpBB version...

I don't know anything about phpBB, but a little googling found a forum describing their new user policies. They appear to be using phpBB.

http://forum.openkm.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5121

kumori wrote:

JohnC wrote:

Would've been awesome if there was a restriction for posting any links for new accounts, but I guess it's not possible with the current phpBB version...

I don't know anything about phpBB, but a little googling found a forum describing their new user policies. They appear to be using phpBB.

http://forum.openkm.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5121

The ability to do this exists. It has been debated many times amongst the TR admin/mod community and the decision has always been not to limit new posters from posting URLs because we didn't want to appear so unwelcoming to new posters looking for help. We know it increases spam and our heroic forum techie Morphine has given us a 1-click perma-kill solution for the spam that does come through.

In short, it's not a bug, it's a feature.

Captain Ned wrote:

In short, it's not a bug, it's a feature.

please explain that to the people at microsoft that "fixed" the start menu registry hack.

Captain Ned wrote:

1-click perma-kill solution

You will need to know this TR lingo to be considered a real gerbil, in addition to the origin of the term gerbil of course..