MCcomix.com Forums

I appreciate that you are trying to keep the board clear of spam. But please be careful what you delete as a topic i posted this morning appears to have been deleted along with the spam.

No biggy but a tad annoying none the less

Ps looking at the list of birthdays on the bottom of the board I would say that most of them are spambots.

Sorry about that. More than likely, it was me without realizing it.

I wonder if our users would mind if we added Captcha... In fact, I'd like to hear feedback on that idea.

Sorry for the hassle. Could you repost your topic? I'm sad I missed out on it.

like i said, no biggy, I will repost when i get the chance.

If it was the retirement plan post, I scanned though it and thought it looked good. Definitely worth reposting.

I admit I'm not fond of captcha but if it'd actually cut down on the spamming....

<shrug>

Trishbot wrote:I wonder if our users would mind if we added Captcha... In fact, I'd like to hear feedback on that idea.

We already do use Captcha. I believe it was instituted shortly after we launched the site a couple of years ago.

That reminds me that the two-year anniversary of MCcomix.com was just last week. Yay for us!

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that these spammers are actual people, and not bots. Any suggestions on how to fend them off would be greatly appreciated.

- Doc

Doctor Robo wrote:

Trishbot wrote:I wonder if our users would mind if we added Captcha... In fact, I'd like to hear feedback on that idea.

We already do use Captcha. I believe it was instituted shortly after we launched the site a couple of years ago.

That reminds me that the two-year anniversary of MCcomix.com was just last week. Yay for us!

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that these spammers are actual people, and not bots. Any suggestions on how to fend them off would be greatly appreciated.

- Doc

fending of actual people is more or less impossible (if they're determined, they'll be back sooner or later)

more mods in different time zones can help... it is possible that they lose interest if their posts get deleted after a few minutes and not hours... but there's no guarantee that they disappear

(and congratulation to the anniversary )

Well, for starters, restrict use of hyperlinks in some way..that's what these spammers live for..to take you to their site. Whether it's staff only or maybe allow them after you've posted legit x number of posts as restrictions...something like that.

Northern Chill

kakyo001 wrote:

Doctor Robo wrote:

Trishbot wrote:I wonder if our users would mind if we added Captcha... In fact, I'd like to hear feedback on that idea.

We already do use Captcha. I believe it was instituted shortly after we launched the site a couple of years ago.

That reminds me that the two-year anniversary of MCcomix.com was just last week. Yay for us!

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that these spammers are actual people, and not bots. Any suggestions on how to fend them off would be greatly appreciated.

- Doc

fending of actual people is more or less impossible (if they're determined, they'll be back sooner or later)

more mods in different time zones can help... it is possible that they lose interest if their posts get deleted after a few minutes and not hours... but there's no guarantee that they disappear

(and congratulation to the anniversary )

More mods may not kill em off...one mod woke up and killed 38 spam posts one morning recently..all in the overnight hours.

I have tinkered with the settings and discovered what may serve as a viable solution.

From this point forward no new registrants can post to the forums without a moderator approving their initial post first. If the post is spam, the mod will see that and disallow the post. If the post is legit, then the mod will approve it and everything that person posts afterward will automatically be approved (as usual).

We'll try that out for a while and see if it works.

- Doc

Northern Chill wrote:More mods may not kill em off...one mod woke up and killed 38 spam posts one morning recently..all in the overnight hours.

that's why I said different time zones

but since they're doing that for 2 years by now (and it's always rather similiar content... it might be the same people after all), there is more or less no chance to fend them off as long as the forum is free (and as far as I remember, linking the forum to the paid accounts was a no go)

There is, of course, also a possibility of annding Capcha to every posting action. Let's admit it, we are not posting that much, so it wouldn't be THAT annoying...
And for the 'human bots' (lol, how peculiar. For THIS forum in particular it sounds awesome >.<) You can block an IP instead of a user account itself, no?

But then again. I don't see it as much of a problem. Unless the mods don't mind deleting a few posts every day, of course.

Doctor Robo wrote:I have tinkered with the settings and discovered what may serve as a viable solution.

From this point forward no new registrants can post to the forums without a moderator approving their initial post first. If the post is spam, the mod will see that and disallow the post. If the post is legit, then the mod will approve it and everything that person posts afterward will automatically be approved (as usual).

We'll try that out for a while and see if it works.

Hmmm...I think I saw a variation on that theme on one of the boards that I recently applied to. When you joined your posts were moderated at first pending sysop approval...once they saw a couple and realized you weren't a bot, your account was unlocked to post normally.

Oh, I glanced over dr. Robo's post, somehow..

That is quite elegant sollution, yes.

Another variant to add to the arsenal, in case the spammers are willing to bother with making a 'real' post just to enable a run of spam: edit the forum code to keep posts from accounts marked 'spammer' but only display them when the spammer is the one reading. They think their posts are going up, but nobody else ever sees them. It keeps the forums clean *and* wastes their time. What's not to like?