SurprisedPikachuBob3
Farmer
Is there any way to add a filter to the forums as we seem to be in a major wave of incursions of spam.
Is there any way to help reduce the amount of spam?
- Thread starter SurprisedPikachuBob3
- Start date
Lew Zealand
Helper
I'm not sure but an easy way is to hold an account's first post for review by admin before posting so they can review it but that will exclude people who just want a quick answer to things and puts a pretty big load on the admins as we get a lot of new users every day.
Njin
Planter
amount of spam has been bonkrs, I lack understanding of these sorts of things but maybe a captcha when you create an account to help filter out bots, or perhaps that's a thing already and It don't work like I think it does. IDK . Gotta be some thing I'm sure it's a pain for the admins
Lew Zealand
Helper
LOL I'm ignoring 99 Spambots here! Who'll be #100? Should I do something special? I need to think of a Very Special Blosso uh, yeah... meme with everyone's Spamname on it. Hmmm...
SurprisedPikachuBob3
Farmer
99! you are only missing 52 then you can say you have caught them all!
Quirinea
Farmer
I once again noticed that there is still that lag between reports. I report a spam message, ignore the sender, go back, there is still mess filling the list, go to report -- and had to wait before my report goes through.
There seems to be another invasion. The previous ones were in Chinese, these seem to be written in Korean.
@Lew Zealand Yeah, things that make it hard for newbies usually with technical problems are not good. Someone once proposed limiting the use of links. Oh well. The first thing to say to someone with mod problems: "could you give a link to your SMAPI log?"
Slowing down sending messages is another thing that comes to my mind but it may just make the problem worse: if spammer cannot send ten messages, then the spammer makes ten accounts....
Also most Captchas are harder for a person than for a bot, nowadays. Hmmm. Having to answer a question on SDV before continuing? Easy ones like "Who's the Major?" "Who lives on the beach in a hut?" "Who's the child without mom?"
There seems to be another invasion. The previous ones were in Chinese, these seem to be written in Korean.
@Lew Zealand Yeah, things that make it hard for newbies usually with technical problems are not good. Someone once proposed limiting the use of links. Oh well. The first thing to say to someone with mod problems: "could you give a link to your SMAPI log?"
Slowing down sending messages is another thing that comes to my mind but it may just make the problem worse: if spammer cannot send ten messages, then the spammer makes ten accounts....
Also most Captchas are harder for a person than for a bot, nowadays. Hmmm. Having to answer a question on SDV before continuing? Easy ones like "Who's the Major?" "Who lives on the beach in a hut?" "Who's the child without mom?"
To clear up some things:
- Registration already requires a CAPTCHA and we legit have so many words blocked that these bots like to use, seriously pulling my hair out here
- I know the spam is really annoying ): it annoys us too and it's been really bad lately. We're looking into how we can prevent it more
- If you see a wave of spam, reporting the account and then blocking them will prevent you from seeing their messages until we take care of it! We try to take care of things ASAP but sometimes they've posted at tricky times
For now, I've set registrations to be manually approved by us since looking at the list, it's pretty much mostly spambots joining right now; actual users are at a much more casual rate and are very easy to spot. Spambots typically have specific types of emails and usernames, so it's unlikely a real user will be caught in the sauce (but if they are, I can approve their registration and they can continue on normally)
I'll let the process be more automated once spam calms down again since it theoretically should eventually
- Registration already requires a CAPTCHA and we legit have so many words blocked that these bots like to use, seriously pulling my hair out here
- I know the spam is really annoying ): it annoys us too and it's been really bad lately. We're looking into how we can prevent it more
- If you see a wave of spam, reporting the account and then blocking them will prevent you from seeing their messages until we take care of it! We try to take care of things ASAP but sometimes they've posted at tricky times
For now, I've set registrations to be manually approved by us since looking at the list, it's pretty much mostly spambots joining right now; actual users are at a much more casual rate and are very easy to spot. Spambots typically have specific types of emails and usernames, so it's unlikely a real user will be caught in the sauce (but if they are, I can approve their registration and they can continue on normally)
I'll let the process be more automated once spam calms down again since it theoretically should eventually
SurprisedPikachuBob3
Farmer
It has seemed to work which is great!