Thread

I think it’s time that EllisLabs add’s either a re-captcha or ban ip address method to these forums, I come on here and reported over 30 spam messages from the same person.

You could also add their IP address to the .htaccess file and ban it.

We have both, actually, the spammers have been waiting until weekends and posting from a wide variety of IP addresses. We’re working on some additional custom heuristics, too, since Akismet isn’t trapping this stuff either.

What’s wrong with my earlier suggestion of using a moderation queue for postings of new users? See http://ellislab.com/forums/viewthread/231427/#1046179

It’s a fine suggestion given a limitless supply of moderators, which we do not have. You say that it works well on your forums, so I’m curious, how many new users do you have per day on your forums, luvd, and how many people help moderate this queue?

It’s a forum for developers of business software, meaning there is less activity in the weekends or on holidays.
An average of 5 new user registrations per day (total number of registered users is +28000 of which +23000 are active users (have visited at least once in the past 30 days)). 2 moderators are in charge to maintain the forum. As this forum is a hobby project, we don’t need to bill our hours.

I don’t have a clue about the number of new user registrations here. The worst thing for a professional company is having spam visible in the forum. If you don’t take this seriously, people will stay away! With the moderation queue, no spam is visible to the public. The only side effect is that legitimate postings are not visible immediately but only after a moderator has approved that posting. But that’s only for the first 2 - 3 postings of new users. After that, their postings are visible immediately.

One thing to implement immediately is email validation. I just signed up and posted this without verifying my email account.. which is the real one I promise =)

Also as mentioned some modern form of captcha which requires moving the mouse on a flash captcha could help on top of email verification

One thing to implement immediately is email validation.

If this were just a forum community, I’d agree, but our web site’s primary purpose is to conduct business, and registration authentication before being allowed to purchase items in your cart is a hassle that causes lost sales.

some modern form of captcha

We have modern captcha implemented. 😉

In both cases, the type of spam we are being targeted with, neither of these additions would help, sadly. I’ve seen the software they are using, it prompts a human for input when needed, and automates everything else. So anything that is designed to stop bots works for about a day, after they’ve noticed and adjusted their software to indicate another step or piece of information that requires human intervention.

If this were just a forum community, I’d agree, but our web site’s primary purpose is to conduct business, and registration authentication before being allowed to purchase items in your cart is a hassle that causes lost sales.

What does the ability to use a cart have to do with posting in the forum? Add another member group….

If you’re too overwhelmed to clean up spam that sits around for days (weeks, sometimes), then deputize some of your trusted customers to help out when canned pork product is spotted.

We effectively do treat customers and non-customers as two separate member groups when it comes to posting to the forums. And new forum users’ content is passed to Akismet along with about a dozen custom filters. Akismet is really what’s been letting us down lately, so we’re looking at replacing that with a more robust and tailored solution.

then deputize some of your trusted customers to help out when canned pork product is spotted.

We’ve tried that in the past with limited success, but we’d be willing to try again. Are you volunteering? 😊

Derek,

Too much spams when i visited here on the beginning of this january 2014 😊 PM me if a moderator is needed at EE, i’m volunteering. Actually i’m also with vBulletin French and we have blocked a lot of spam by adding the “IP’s and Email Address Provider” to the “Member Exclusion Group”, of course we check before considering it as spam. And my job actual now in Paris, France, is “IT Administrator (for server, cms, erp, crm) and Product Development”.

Regards.

I tried posting in a thread in the CI General Discussion area and I got an error saying I wasn’t allowed because I might be a spammer, that the privelege of posting is reserved for active members or people that purchase a product. How does one become an active member if they cannot post? :x

(But yet this post went through :o)

We’ve tried that in the past with limited success, but we’d be willing to try again. Are you volunteering? 😊

I don’t spend as much time here as I used to, as the conversation isn’t as lively these days, but I’d certainly be willing to blast away at the obvious spam when I ran across it.

Thanks Dylan and Apfelfrucht for the offer.  I’ll probably be in touch later this week.

In the meantime, we’ve added some additional filters and IP blocks that should further decrease the spam. For what it’s worth, our existing filters have successfully stopped almost 23,000 spam posts from being submitted in the last month. We’re dealing with a volume that is just absurd.

I was just about to recommend email validation, but saw someone else did already. Was looking for translation related content and saw a post in the forum and then saw your little spam problem.

What I would do is enable e-mail validation and only accept paid e-mail address, don’t allow any free e-mails. This should take care of much of the spam, and what’s left will be easily dealt with.

We’ve tried that in the past with limited success, but we’d be willing to try again. Are you volunteering? 😊

I don’t spend as much time here as I used to, as the conversation isn’t as lively these days, but I’d certainly be willing to blast away at the obvious spam when I ran across it.

I actually made a similar offer a few months back, and would still be more than willing to help out if it makes the forums a more appealing place for the community to visit and interact.

Like Dylan, I don’t spend as much time on the forums as I once did. I think a lot of folk moved off to the stackoverflow page when the original forums vanished. I appreciate they are back in read-only for which is great for searches but something needs done to try and draw the crowds back - and step one of that is getting rid of the spam!