Spam Reduction Idea ?

Ebe_Scrooge

I've noticed that a lot of spammers seem to take great delight in creating a new user ID, then posting on a thread that's months or years old, to advertise their website ( how do they find these old threads anyway, must take an awful lot of trawling / trolling ! )

Anyhow, how about getting the site to automatically lock threads that haven't had a post in, say, 6 months or something like that, so no new posts can be made ? It might stop a lot of these "old-thread-resurrectionists". If a genuine, established, user wants to add a post to a locked thread, then maybe a button which will send a request to a mod to unlock the thread - most genuine users won't want to resurrect old threads, so I wouldn't imagine this would be too much of a burden for the mods ? Make the "unlock request" button available to only those who have a respectable posting history ( e.g. has made at least 200 posts, or something ).

Just an idea.

davetrousers

Something needs to be done to identify old threads, what sometimes happens is: A thread gets started where the OP asks a question, then over about 20 replies the question is answered, the OP then moves on and no longer needs the thread, then 3 years later somebody googles something and sees that one of the finds is the question in the forum so they then resurrect the old thread with their similar question. People then start replying to the OP!

Though my suggestion for making identifying the OP in long threads has never gotten of the ground, even though people say it's a good idea, so don't hold your breath.

fermi

See: Auto-locking old threads

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

What’s happening?

To deter spammers from bumping up old forum threads we plan to start auto-locking threads that haven't been posted on for more than a certain amount of time. We'll be working on the oldest threads first and working our way forward depending on how it goes.

Which boards?

Certain boards and threads will be excluded from this eg Debt Free Diaries, and threads linked to from MSE main site articles as they’re specifically there to help people and the nature of them means those people may not update for some time. Initially though it’s unlikely there’ll be any threads of that age you’d need to post on anyway.

Ebe_Scrooge

Doh, guess I should have searched for "old" threads relating to this idea before posting

Thanks for the info.