Forum spam

Hi Matthew That will slow them down What measures are in place to prevent bots signing up? One thing that has worked extremly well on a phpbb based board Im involved in is a challenge question with a default answer set that is not valid. In my case the question is enter a 5 digit number but the default is isuzu. Bots see the answer and jump over it and instantly back to the start. Doesnt stop people created spam though. Only answer to them is deletion after the fact

couldnt resist, a classic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

well didnt take long before we still got a spammer to get through the spam blocking

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Yes but only two posts. It's not blocking them just putting the brakes on. There are measures to stop bots signjng up and also separate measures to stop them posting. The spam you see here is handmade.

Hi everybody, Sorry about the forum issues. In addressing the forum spam, I introduced a bug. It should be fixed now.

I've just been blocking them. Problem solvered. ;)

problem solved for us maybe. Really most spam isnt that bad for the end user. However Mathew has to deal with times when the spammers are posting more content than everyone else plus the space it takes up on his server and the bandwith it takes on his internet connection. If all the spam that we have seen come in this year came down together in one night none of the rest of us would be able to access the forum.

Just a status update on this. For some time now, there have been several mechanisms in place to manage spammers: * Captcha on initial sign up to check you're not a bot * Hidden code in forum posting forms that cycles on a daily basis to stop automated submissions * Ability to flag posts for review * Ability to mute users you don't want to hear from It's not easy to add to this without adversely affecting legitimate users. However, what I am rolling out is throttling of posts so that new users can only post once every ten minutes. This would not stop a persistent spammer. However, I am working from the principle that if spamming is inefficient then it is not worth doing. This update is partly but not completely rolled out.