Spam Bots are back

Tixy

forgotmyname wrote: »

RESTRICT NEW MEMBERS TO ONE POST.......

I know it will be a busy job to vet all 1st posts but restricting them to one post per IP. Does the forum software allow limits per IP range?

Only x amount of new members per IP range out of hours?

I've wondered if something like this couldn't be done as well.
Even if new users were only restricted to posting once every, say, 5mins it wouldn't have a huge impact on genuine newbies but would massively slow down the spammers and especially spambots.

Failing that weighted powers of spam clicking would definitely help. Many posters ignore the spambots and I'd guess it is a relatively small number of posters will work through pages of obvious spam clicking to spam it. If those posters had more influence it would be a very big help.

Tiglath

I've just reported about 30 posts by 5 different spammers. If MSE can't be bothered to sort it out, I won't bother again - the volume of spam posts can just build up.

molerat

Many forums manage to do it, one I frequent will not let someone register a new name from a used IP, may not be 100% but the mods there are happy with it, stops the AEs as well. The team here have banned the words 5a1e and 10ve, screwed up the forums by doing it but hey, why do things the proper way when you can take the easy way out :mad: Captcha has been suggested for the first x posts of a newbie but it seems my last comment applies there as well.

torbrex

Thing is banning certain words does not stop the spammers as they don't actually read the posts that they make, it is all done by cut & paste and with the spambots, there is no-one at the other end anyway so what good does it do to ban the words?

fermi

forgotmyname wrote: »

Does the forum software allow limits per IP range?

Not in the default options. Probably possible by a 3rd party hack/mod, but you have to be cautious using those as they can break forums if not careful.

molerat

I see I can buy cheap k!tCh3n5 today :mad:

custardy

molerat wrote: »

Many forums manage to do it, one I frequent will not let someone register a new name from a used IP, may not be 100% but the mods there are happy with it, stops the AEs as well. The team here have banned the words 5a1e and 10ve, screwed up the forums by doing it but hey, why do things the proper way when you can take the easy way out :mad: Captcha has been suggested for the first x posts of a newbie but it seems my last comment applies there as well.

So they dont have anyone for example members who live in halls,posts from work etc
An IP from multiple accounts isnt unusual

fermi

Indeed. Banning or filtering by IP is far too blunt and ineffective a tool to be of use in any but very unusual circumstances. And any ban or restriction is usually ridiculously easy to circumvent.

torbrex

Todays edition of the Black Magic newsletter makes it obvious to anyone that banning certain words makes no difference to these spammers, they don't care if it appears as !!!!!!!!!!!, they never look at the posts, just post and move on.

If MSE were to ban actual posts with the words in them then that would work but banning the actual words DOES NOT WORK

Lube

Why not limit amount of posts for a user just joined or lower the spam threshold. Or if possible when a poster is flagged as spam in several threads all there posts are then hidden until abuse get to look at it.