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This topic contains 33 replies, has 12 voices, and was last updated by  warzan 5 years, 3 months ago.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 36 total)
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  • #1427674

    blinky465
    17028xp
    Cult of Games Member

    It’s happened a few times in recent weeks, but when I clicked on the Forums link on the site this evening, every single forum summary was the same drivel about bisexual fantasy or something (honestly, I genuinely didn’t bother reading it, honest guv).

    Firstly, I’m presuming that the user responsible has been banned (or, if an account has been hacked, it’s at least been blocked until its been resolved). But is there some way that content of dubious value could be automatically screened?

    I didn’t say anything the first few times, as spamming forums is a problem as old as the internet itself. But both my email inbox and the forum summary page on the OTT website is flooded with crap I really would rather not have to see. Is there anything you guys could do?

    #1427683

    unclejimmy
    Member
    9225xp

    I checked mine and it is fine.

    #1427685

    blinky465
    17028xp
    Cult of Games Member

    Wow! That was fast. Nice one guys!

    Maybe I need to look at my new topic email alert settings….

    #1427720

    jodain
    12433xp
    Cult of Games Member

    You’re not the only one @blinky465 I had three emails in my inbox.

    #1427933

    zeker1966
    1633xp
    Cult of Games Member

    Same. It’s happened before as you mention. I note that by the time I go to the site it is often taken care of as those posts have been deleted. I’m sure everyone is doing the best they can. On the one hand I don’t want to see these things sent to my email on the other I know that by the time I go to the website they are generally cleaned up. Not sure what filtering can be done other than maybe putting a pause on new accounts posting new threads. In other words the new threads by a new account (or first time posting) must be looked at first.

    #1427934

    warzan
    Keymaster
    31125xp

    Yeah its a tricky one, we have some measures already in place (like delayed activation of accounts to post etc) and we try to jump on them as soon as they happen.

    But small team syndrome, we have to balance what time we have available to develop other solutions (that end up being circumvented)

    But we are doing our very best 🙂

    #1427965

    jodain
    12433xp
    Cult of Games Member

    @warzan I completely understand  having run my own websites it is difficult to keep on top of. The idea of new posts by newly registered accounts needing approval is a good one, but I can see it taking up time from the team.

    I think i just need to turn off the email updates as I only spot the spam threads there. They seem to happen overnight UK time, and by the time I log on you’ve cleaned them up.

    Keep up the great work!

    #1427967

    blinky465
    17028xp
    Cult of Games Member

    @warzan – you certainly got rid of them quickly enough! Nice work.

    If it wasn’t for the notification emails, only those of us actually viewing the site at the time would have even been aware (it’s partly why I didn’t bother reporting it the last few times it happened, as it was dealt with so quickly).

    Maybe there’s some kind of “filter list” and if certain words appear more than an acceptable number of times, it could go into a “moderation queue”? Yes it’s a little bit more admin – but probably not much more than responding to the original complaints and deleting the content? Not sure how sophisticated your CMS system is, but something that could identify *possible* objectionable content and throw it in to a “are you sure?” list might be an answer?

    #1428200

    warzan
    Keymaster
    31125xp

    Just to keep you in the loop folks

    We have been under a sustained spam ‘attack’ (makes it sound more dramatic than it is) today.

    We have been seen hundreds of accounts created (and thousands of attempts)

    We have been deleting the spam accounts every couple of hours (its a bit wackamole) and have updated the captcha stuff this evening to see if it can help.

    We’ll be keeping an eye on it 🙂

    #1428348

    sundancer
    42985xp
    Cult of Games Member

    Seeing that there is still a flood of registred users may I suggest you use a honeypot on the registration page like the WordPress Plugin “Antispam Bee” uses? Basically it adds a required field that is not visible to real users but shows up on a botcrawl. so if it’s clicked the spam is immediately recognized.

    Also I use a plug-in for my forums to catch spammers. There is a WP plug-in for that as well

    http://www.stopforumspam.com/contributions#link_wp

    HTH

    #1428374

    maledrakh
    Participant
    11996xp

    I have had to turn off email subscriptions to the forums because of this.

    a pity.

    #1428375

    warzan
    Keymaster
    31125xp

    We have added the stop forum spam option to see if it can filter these bots out.

    We will also be gradually notching up our cloudflare security, we are always reluctant to do that as it does challenge a lot of ‘normal’ users of the site, but the more its used the better it gets at adding an additional protective layer of security so it may well be a case of bite the bullet on this.

    #1428387

    warzan
    Keymaster
    31125xp

    At first glance, the steps seem to be working

    #1428396

    sundancer
    42985xp
    Cult of Games Member

    I was useful today! I contributed! I am worthy! 😉

    #1428413

    warzan
    Keymaster
    31125xp

    You absolutely were @sundancer

    That plugin is churning away sending me email alerts that spammers are being DENIED!!!!! (love it and thank you mate)

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