Spam Reduction

[barnee]

@djensen can anything be done ? It’s annoying. It’s also easily ignorable except for the fact i need to scroll through and see if there’s something A&A related I want to look at.

Just mentioning because it’s getting worse. I don’t see it at the triplea site. Maybe it’s because you’re more popular : )

[Panther]

@barnee

Can anything be done?

Whenever I log in I currently remove 6-8 spam accounts a day including the postings created by those account holders. I am taking other actions I won’t report here to not encourage spammers to somehow overcome them.

So yes, I waste a lot of time with doing “anything” against it.

The only additional thing I can think of is to block account creation - to be approved before allowing anything to do. But that might filter out “regular” accounts here and there.

It is the same over at triplea, but not as much, that is why you don’t notice it that often.

So let me now remove the latest trash.

[captainwalker]

@panther thanks for cleaning those up. I’ve noticed that there’s been a lot lately so I appreciate that you’re taking the time to do that.

[Witt]

@Panther i have removed 1-3 most days too. I did contact Dave to bring it to his attention. Hasn’t been this bad in a while .

[barnee]

@witt I keep having dreams about gummies and I don’t even know what they are lol

You guys doing a good job and are appreciated : )

[Witt]

@barnee they do sound like tasty sweets , don’t they?

[Franklin_Cain]

Do the forums have some means of reporting spam posts, to flag those posts for action by the forum admins?

Thanks,
Franklin

[Panther]

@franklin_cain

Indeed it does. Please use the “Flag this post” or “Flag this User” feature that you find at the three-point menu at the bottom to the right of every posting.

[Franklin_Cain]

Clicking on that icon (the column of three dots) shows me these options:

Bookmark
Share this Post
x Facebook
x Twitter

If the post in question is one of my own, I also see options for edit and delete.

Thanks,
Franklin

[Panther]

@franklin_cain

Please perform a browser refresh and try again.

[Franklin_Cain]

Huzzah! ^_^
What was wrong, if I may ask?

Thanks,
Franklin

[Panther]

@franklin_cain
Nothing was wrong, you just need 10 points “reputation” to be able to flag.

[barnee]

37 notifications is a whole new level. @djensen can you do anything ? Do we need to switch to keys instead of passwords ?

Not sure if that’s possible with nodebb but the current spam rate makes the site basically unusable

[General 6 Stars]

I just counted 37. Hey is Spam a new country added to axis and allies ? Seems they have an income of 37.

[barnee]

@general-6-stars thats without Nationalistic Advantages

[Panther]

@barnee said in Spam Reduction:

37 notifications is a whole new level. @djensen can you do anything ? Do we need to switch to keys instead of passwords ?

Not sure if that’s possible with nodebb but the current spam rate makes the site basically unusable

Very easy to remove, but a pain indeed.

However, the problem is not about passwords. Neither about account hijacking.
A key is nothing else than a (very) long password (file) … so what would be the benefit?
Even 2FA with a Yubikey or other items wouldn’t help here.
As long as we can’t look into account creators intentions we could only block account creation itself.
That would keep out “good” users, too. Or we could approve postings before being published - while there is not enough manpower to do this 24-7.

But indeed, maybe @djensen has some other ideas of how to deal with it.

[Imperious Leader]

@panther Membership signup should include a battery of questions that most noobs would know about A&A. Rules, History, Unit stats, etc. this would destroy it to zero

[barnee]

@imperious-leader that seems a good idea. If you can’t pass the test you can ask for your registration to be reviewed. I would think it’d be easy enough to tell if it was a bot then but …

[djensen]

I’ll start by updating the forum software this weekend. I don’t think that will do it but it’s a start.

One option, which I would not like, is to require a reputation of 1 in order to post something. Then only allowing new folks to post in the “introduce yourself” thread.

[barnee]

@djensen said in Spam Reduction:

One option, which I would not like, is to require a reputation of 1 in order to post something.

yea that might end up being a necessary evil. it’s why i always try to upvote new members. Kinda my way of saying hello. That and I think you cant post links or images without a few ?