Limit new members to stop spam?

Pygmalion

As you may or may not be aware there's been an issue with someone spamming some very NSFW images in Clearasil and Hormones (among other forums, I think Cork City and Cool Vids & Pics & Links were also affected).
Since this has happened when there was no mod around it was left up for far too long each time (happened 3 times so far in the last week or so).

Some other forums have it so that new members can't post any images for X amount of posts (usually 10 or 20), would it be reasonable to have this on boards?
It would probably stop this kind of spam (they would have to waste 5-10 minutes or so at least with the 30 second delay and may be banned by the time they can post images).
It could be a problem where new members have a legitimate reason to post images, but I don't think requiring 10 or 20 posts would be that off-putting or unusual, an explanation could be given if they try to post an image in that time.

D4RK ONION

Major plus one here, could help with a lot of the spam problems boards.ie sees.

Davidius

Would be fairly nice, same stuff keeps appearing on a daily basis at this stage. Just happened again.

drunkmonkey

+1

Just clicked into a thread and got a load of butt shots, no pics or vids for 50 posts should cut it out.

tc2010

maybe limit the posting of images and links till a member has at least 10 - 15 posts.

not good getting them type of images on the screen in the middle of work

Solitaire

Hmm... maybe no pics until 15 posts, then no vids and only 1 or 2 pics until 50 posts?

I know its a pain in the butt for the devs but it could help make life harder for picture adbots and malicious imagespammers... plus reinforce to trolls the fact that posting image content is supposed to be a privelige, not a tool for troublemaking!

tc2010

could be setup easily enough

Fago!

50 Posts for pics, vids and links! Just a thought. To stop people promote their website.

WanderingSoul

I think overall this is a good idea. However, I'd wonder if this was implemented would that just cause spammers to just post crap posts with absolutely no value in order to get to the 10 posts/whatever. Though I think this could be prevented anyway if the limit was 25 posts or higher. 25 posts would actually be a good idea as that's the limit for a few things already (sigs etc.).

+1 from me anyway.

Solitaire

Bear in mind it takes 30 seconds before you can post again. That really takes the wind out of most fly-by-spammers' wings, and would make life just a little more awkward for more malicious trolls to get enough of a foothold to start posting floods of imagespam. And as they rarely have a word worth saying they're more likely to get caught out blockposting and won't even get the chance to post nasty pics before a Mod takes their trollish heads clean off

Conor

This is a policy issue, not a technical one. As such, it would be better suited to Feedback or FeedForward.

I'm bumping this thread to Feedback, any other mod/admin can feel free to move it somewhere more appropriate.

Spiritoftheseventies

Conor wrote: »

This is a policy issue, not a technical one. As such, it would be better suited to Feedback or FeedForward.

I'm bumping this thread to Feedback, any other mod/admin can feel free to move it somewhere more appropriate.

I just disabled images in my options list. Got to stage where some posters where putting up some rather crass images. Really dont like that in your face picture posting. There are some good picture posts but as a rule some go over the top. So really anyone who has a problem just should disable images IMO

AckwelFoley

I think this is a good idea, i thought it was already inplace tbh!

Spiritoftheseventies

snyper wrote: »

I think this is a good idea, i thought it was already inplace tbh!

the other idea would be to pre mod the posts. It is done on other threads so it might do the trick

AckwelFoley

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

the other idea would be to pre mod the posts. It is done on other threads so it might do the trick

Its too labour intensive and discourages genuine new members from getting involved if there is a time delay between them posting and it appearing.. Im thinking of slow forums where at times there are no mods..

Thats why a lock on posting pics or vid's until the member has 20 or so posts works best .. i reckon

Spiritoftheseventies

snyper wrote: »

Its too labour intensive and discourages genuine new members from getting involved if there is a time delay between them posting and it appearing.. Im thinking of slow forums where at times there are no mods..

Thats why a lock on posting pics or vid's until the member has 20 or so posts works best .. i reckon

My experience is that members behave differently in different forums. Probably natural. They may get up twenty posts but its no guarentee they wont post spam after reaching twenty posts. Pre moderating while laborious would seem the only way round that or simply bann images altogether. Again if its a problem just disable the picture option on your private list. You at least have the option of viewing the images at your own leisure rather than having them pushed upon you

Insect Overlord

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

My experience is that members behave differently in different forums. Probably natural. They may get up twenty posts but its no guarentee they wont post spam after reaching twenty posts. Pre moderating while laborious would seem the only way round that or simply bann images altogether. Again if its a problem just disable the picture option on your private list. You at least have the option of viewing the images at your own leisure rather than having them pushed upon you

You have ridiculously high expectations of moderators, and a ridiculously low appreciation of the value of images.

Spiritoftheseventies

Insect Overlord wrote: »

You have ridiculously high expectations of moderators, and a ridiculously low appreciation of the value of images.

. I just chose to turn images off. No amount of witty sigs or witty picture posts can compensate for some of the stuff that comes on here. And judging by number of thanks on first post would say a lot of posters feel the same way

5starpool

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

. I just chose to turn images off. No amount of witty sigs or witty picture posts can compensate for some of the stuff that comes on here. And judging by number of thanks on first post would say a lot of posters feel the same way

The first post relates to stopping new members doing it for 20 or so posts, not banning them altogether.

You are banging a drum that is not exactly universally popular, but if you have images turned off for you, that solves your longstanding issue with it anyhow.

Steve

+1 to this.

It's already 25 posts for a sig and 10 posts before thanks kicks in so I don't see why not.

Dymo

In another forum I post in, when you register you can only post in 2 forums until your granted access to post in the rest of the sight.Gets rid of all spam and people just posting to flame others.

Spiritoftheseventies

5starpool wrote: »

The first post relates to stopping new members doing it for 20 or so posts, not banning them altogether.

You are banging a drum that is not exactly universally popular, but if you have images turned off for you, that solves your longstanding issue with it anyhow.

Never mentioned anything about banning posters. Just maybe a bit of pre moderation. This thing about posters needing to post 25 posts or so is something that is tried on another forum. But as I have mentioned posters will react differently in different environments.
If there is that big a problem with certain picture posts being posted the way to stop that is to pre moderate new posters for maybe the first twenty five posts within that forum.
If posters are serious enough about posting in that forum they wont object to the temporary imposition.

LoLth

Until they post at 3am to respond to a topic and then get incredibly annoyed at the fact that the moderator wasnt online to approve their post before a more veteran member moved the discussion on and away from the point.

Its a nice idea but the overhead for mods would be too great imho and that plus the user having to wait until a post is approved would not be worth the gains made.

Restricting image posting until 20 or 25 posts could be good as well. Thing is, this wont actually stop spam, it'll stop posting of pr0n but most marketing bot spam messages are composed of walls of text and not images for precisely that reason : forums can restrict post content.

KoolKid

Would there also be a way to prevent new members posting links in, say thier first 10 posts?

WanderingSoul

koolkid wrote: »

Would there also be a way to prevent new members posting links in, say thier first 10 posts?

I don't think that would work because the spammers would just say:

For more information visit my website: blahblahblah.com

They would just type out the address and not link it (I know of the url tags but they can be bypassed by leaving out "www.").

KoolKid

WanderingSoul wrote: »

I don't think that would work because the spammers would just say:



They would just type out the address and not link it (I know of the url tags but they can be bypassed by leaving out "www.").

Is there any software that could recognise the domains like .com , .co.uk etc.
Spammers are mainly interested in live links rather than just posting a sites name.

Solitaire

LoLth wrote: »

Restricting image posting until 20 or 25 posts could be good as well. Thing is, this wont actually stop spam, it'll stop posting of pr0n but most marketing bot spam messages are composed of walls of text and not images for precisely that reason : forums can restrict post content.

It'll really hurt outright malicious image-attacks and should still help cut down on crap; its was never a full-proof measure, just an easy, low-maintenance trick to reduce the levels of fail rather than cut it out altogether. Fullproof measures are only as foolproof as the most determined fool, and there's always one of those ones out there... :rolleyes:

Pygmalion

LoLth wrote: »

Restricting image posting until 20 or 25 posts could be good as well. Thing is, this wont actually stop spam, it'll stop posting of pr0n but most marketing bot spam messages are composed of walls of text and not images for precisely that reason : forums can restrict post content.

I posted this in response to some pretty graphic images being posted around that time, it wasn't supposed to be as a general solution to spam, just to prevent that kind of thing from happening again.
I do appreciate that it would be impossible to have a foolproof method of stopping spam without stopping genuine posts too, but I think a short delay in being allowed to post images would be fairly understandable and wouldn't turn people away or anything.

Nick_oliveri

+1 to the op.

If a system was implemented that seen the .co.uk or the .com in new users posts and censored the whole address, it would also be a good idea.

Is there image verification to stop spambots on registration?

tc2010

Theres a great modification for Vbulletin called VBstopforumspam

http://www.stopforumspam.com/

It works for me 100%. That will get rid of all the Bots