Replying to spambots

Chuy! · Post by **Chuy!** » December 19th, 2012, 2:59 am

I always want to say something to the spambots, but I think I remember a thread where someone said that if we don't respond, they are easier to battle. I feel the things that I think are VERY important and want to say them to the bots. If I will get in trouble with the mods of this great service, then I will stay silent. Until then..... I AM SPAMBOT! (More Wu Yun, please...)

Spots · Post by **Spots** » December 19th, 2012, 3:37 am

Chuy,

Click on "Memberlist" and organize the members by most recently joined, Descending.

There's literally 4-5 pages of spambots registering EACH DAY. 50 -120 pages of spambots total. so if we really wanted to battle them we would begin with a better registration filter.

Captcha, or a simple question only a human could answer. Anything.

Until then I'm gonna play with those spambots.

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell · December 19th, 2012, 9:09 am

Chuy! wrote:(More Wu Yun, please...)

we're all waiting for YOUR chapter in the saga, Chuy...

Chuy! · Post by **Chuy!** » December 19th, 2012, 9:15 am

I'm a lurker, not a writer...

Rev. Jordan T. Maxwell · December 19th, 2012, 9:17 am

Chuy! wrote:I'm a lurker, not a writer...

and i'm a lover, not a fighter...but i'll still kick your ass if you don't write a Wu Yun chapter someday.

Post by **happywaffle** » December 19th, 2012, 9:45 am

Adding CAPTCHA, etc. is a request for Brad, Bob, or Bolden. I'm just a lowly moderator. Fortunately only a small number of spambots actually create posts, enough that we can keep the place tidy.

I believe the technical reason to leave them alone is that spambots are more likely to attack a forum where their posts are getting replies, vs. one such as ours where we delete their posts with relative quickness.

Spots · Post by **Spots** » December 19th, 2012, 4:29 pm

The request for a better spam filter is to put less work on the moderators, not more.

I know we'll still have spam bots WITH captcha.

Just seems kinda silly to talk about solutions without acknowledging the obvious root of the issue.

This takes me back to the days I was an admin of gtagamers.com. Players were getting banned left & right by admins working 4 hour shifts. Then one day I took a little time to scour over the code and find the bug in the script.

And in one sweep those 4 hour shifts became unnecessary.

*shudders*

Post by **happywaffle** » December 19th, 2012, 4:33 pm

I'm not saying the request is a bad one, just that it's not something I can do anything about. (And at the moment, the spam volume is manageable, and will probably remain so for a forum of this size.)

trabka · Post by **trabka** » December 19th, 2012, 4:33 pm

There's a rudimentary captcha and it makes you fill out a field to satisfy this requirement when registering a new account:

Remove punctation and spaces to form a common word: (there is a word here) , thus confirming you're a human (or a very smart robot) *
Answer the Textual Confirmation question to prove you are not a spambot.

Spots · Post by **Spots** » December 19th, 2012, 5:11 pm

Trabka, I like that.

I don't know what we're using on the backend here. An old version of phpBB is my guess.

I believe we DO have a filter in place but periodically we hear from users, and not spam bots, about its difficulty of use.

It has something to do with posting 2 posts before you can do BLANK. I only know this peripherally from new posters saying "Am I doing this right? This is my third time trying to post." It probably has more to do with posting links but I think someone registering here for the first time -- it kinda makes sense they came here with a link they want to share with us. Usually that's an opportunity or a resource that's helpful.

Spots · Post by **Spots** » December 19th, 2012, 5:21 pm

Here's an option:

*removed for now*

I believe it's compatible with our current phpBB setup. ( I would turn off the notification if I were you.)

Chuy! · Post by **Chuy!** » December 20th, 2012, 2:50 am

Awww, Fuck. What did I start? I just want to say dumb shit that no one responds to..... Like my life.

Post by **bradisntclever** » December 20th, 2012, 9:01 am

Spots wrote:I don't know what we're using on the backend here. An old version of phpBB is my guess.

I believe we DO have a filter in place but periodically we hear from users, and not spam bots, about its difficulty of use.

Yes, to give you some additional insight to the major hold up - only one person has FTP access to execute some of the changes/upgrades we'd like to see. Jon and I have some additional powers that the moderators don't, but we still lack the access needed to get the upgrade to phpBB 3, for instance. I've reached out to our colleague again for some assistance in this process.

Sidenote about the spam filter: I went through it and cleaned some of the potentially damning words out of it. Most of the things in there are very specific and should never lead to trouble for the average user. One of the words in there was just "ugg" which can be found in larger words like "mugging", "smuggling", etc. I removed it in hopes that whoever was spamming about those boots doesn't return anytime soon.

I encourage any moderators who delete spam posts to see if you notice common words or phrases. If there's something obscure you see more than a few times, email me and I'll add it to our filter.

Spots · Post by **Spots** » December 20th, 2012, 5:49 pm

Ah. This makes so much more sense. All the broken links on the top right etc. Cool.

I've been in the same situation and it is not pleasant.

Austin Improv

Replying to spambots

Replying to spambots

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