I've noticed a lot of spam appearing on the forums in recent times... HOW DO YOU STOP IT?

edit: There is a captcha on the signup page... so its this actual people trying to spam the forums? What f***s!

discuss.

The only sign up form is on AusGamers now and it has a captcha, so people are really going out of their way to sign up to spam.

We have captchas on signup. I have a few ideas for it but basically atm its easier just to delete them and permaban the retards doing it - they appear to be actual humans paid to shlock their cheap products rather than bots (as near as I can tell, anyway). I was thinking maybe just stop new users starting new threads with links in them, which I think would probably do the trick.

I thought you meant spam on email, of which I have noticed a f***ton of in the last week or so.

Yeh, I thought I'd check for a captcha since that seemed fairly obvious.

Maybe a system when someone has to be "approved" before they can start threads? Or have a certain number of posts?

are you able to tell us how many users sign up per day / week?

Maybe a system when someone has to be "approved" before they can start threads? Or have a certain number of posts?

I don't like that idea because occasionally a new person will actually join and start by posting a "hi" thread... which we then all s*** in.

Another forum I'm a member of has a separate forum for new members.

qgl/ausgamers is big biznes now:

google searchers bring the spam(mers)

What about making a wait time of 48hrs or so before first post

I wouldnt be too harsh.

How would we get by in life without fake nike trainers and anti-floppy penis pills, I ask ya?

occasionally a new person will actually join and start by posting a "hi" thread... which we then all s*** in.

Haha its funny cos its true :(

Make an authentication system like old school RPG's. Ask a bunch of random questions that only;

a) Long time users would know the answer to
b) New users could be arsed finding the answer using the Wiki.

Here is some examples to get you started;

Q: When will his funeral be?
Q: What two things can be added to a post to make it worth reading?
Q: When Spook was wrong about vacuum cleaners, what is the second letter of the fourth word in the 3rd paragraph?
Q: Out of the various doctors in the health system, who is the best to ask out on a date?

Q: When will the next QGL LAN be?

Q: List all of chubs hobbies, in alphabetical order:

make it so they have to reply 10 times before they can post a thread

Make an authentication system like old school RPG's. Ask a bunch of random questions that only;

a) Long time users would know the answer to
b) New users could be arsed finding the answer using the Wiki.

Here is some examples to get you started;

Q: When will his funeral be?
Q: What two things can be added to a post to make it worth reading?
Q: When Spook was wrong about vacuum cleaners, what is the second letter of the fourth word in the 3rd paragraph?
Q: Out of the various doctors in the health system, who is the best to ask out on a date?

Maybe not quite so obscure. I've been here for ~8 months and I only know the answers to half those questions. Does that mean I can't post s*** links?

Clearly your new thread rights need to be taken away then.

so then we have spam as replies to threads rather than just new threads? All that does is clutters up existing threads, and stops spam on the threads index.

Bots are too good at beating CAPTCHAs.

If the sign ups are being done in an automated fashion, theres a few things you can try to get around bots that scrape forms:

- Timestamps in hidden fields that check when the form was created vs submitted.
- Unique ID's in hidden fields that expire once a form has been sucessfully submitted.
- using CSS/JS (display:none) to hide a "honeypot" field, that when filled out by a bot, blocks the sign up process (could have the next next to it "do not fill out")

using CSS/JS (display:none) to hide a "honeypot" field, that when filled out by a bot, blocks the sign up process

^^ I use that one. It's gold.

sounds alright scuzzy, except it'll probably take 10 years to implement in to ausforums.

If the sign ups are being done in an automated fashion, theres a few things you can try to get around bots that scrape forms:

afaik, they are not

I can't remember who did it originally, but I loved the idea

let them think they posted the link, but just don't display the post/thread to anyone else

Ie, they sign up - go to post a thread with a link it it
show it to them, they think they're on to something

but the rest of us don't get bombarded with it

charge people.
i'd pay $10 something awful style.

let em spend them money and ban em if they spam.

disable signups completely and make people hunt you down for a change to get an account


or recommendation only



somehow involve a "VIP section" and turn the wank factor up to 11

sparkling_diamond.gif sparkling_diamond.gif sparkling_diamond.gif sparkling_diamond.gif sparkling_diamond.gif sparkling_diamond.gif

so awesome

There already is a VIP secti.... oh wait, I've said too much.

It's where QGL LAN announcements are made.

FaceMan speaks sense in the VIP section.

disable signups completely and make people hunt you down for a change to get an account


or recommendation only

Yeh, I like these ideas too

invite only for the "QGL" forum would be ok... but wouldn't that kinda be bad for "Ausgamers" ??

seriously, trog has already said it :

I was thinking maybe just stop new users starting new threads with links in them, which I think would probably do the trick.

Stop users starting threads with links in the post (make sure they cant edit to put a link in). Then once they hit 50-100 posts then they can go for gold. Also make sure that no variations.....ie no "www " "com "

Security image and valid email address that is NOT a free host like gmail or hotmail, must be a business or isp email. Then if they spam just ban that email address and if more pop up from a particular domain block that entire domain.

invite only for the "QGL" forum would be ok... but wouldn't that kinda be bad for "Ausgamers" ??

There's already an invite only qgl forum, no one ever posts on it :(

While we're implementing new things, how about a feature that doesn't allow Maxe to post pictures of himself?

FaceMan speaks sense in the VIP section.

Hey dont dis Faceman Pinko. He got me free mofie tickets by getting locked up in a time capsule for the next 25 years.

Security image and valid email address that is NOT a free host like gmail or hotmail, must be a business or isp email. Then if they spam just ban that email address and if more pop up from a particular domain block that entire domain.

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before, and as pointed out then, lots of valid forum users use hotmail and gmail as their main/only email address.

last edited by boba at 09:25:55 28/Apr/09

While we're implementing new things, how about a feature that doesn't allow Maxe to post pictures of himself?

im pretty sure that would stop maxe from posting fullstop

Security image and valid email address that is NOT a free host like gmail or hotmail, must be a business or isp email. Then if they spam just ban that email address and if more pop up from a particular domain block that entire domain.

Terrible idea.

If you're trying to build a community, that is.

Who uses their ISP email as a main account anymore anyway? That's rule #4 in Intarweb n00bness 101 - don't tie yourself to your ISP by becoming reliant on your ISP email account.

While we're implementing new things, how about a feature that doesn't allow Maxe to post pictures of himself?

then why even have QGL in the first place?

haha crazy idea make qgl and ausgamers seperate