How to reduce spam

There was one spammer who sounded like beezel, that was pretty fun.

 

There is some tenacious spam-poster that keeps and keeps and keeps making new accounts under different usernames (always 'joined since today') only to post spam about various products in the Prequel section, in early hours of the morning. Third time I report this person-three nights in a row. One has to wonder what this person hopes to accomplish posting some really obvious spam in a Star Wars forum of all places...

 

I just reported like 30 individual spam posts.

 

I swear I never saw this amount of spam in other forums before. To their credit, mods are extremely quick-spam threads are always erased minutes after reporting.

 

Agreed on both points.

 

We try to be quick. If you see spam that isn't cleared after 5-10 minutes feel free to report it.

 

The same has happened in the Welcome Newbies section too. I'm pretty sure it is the same person that keeps posting about his blogg page, the thread gets deleted and he/she is kicked out of JCF after around 25 minutes or so.

 

When we clean up spam, we can use the Spam Cleaner. This tool cleans up the spammer's posts (and the thread if it is the first post) and permabans the spammer all in one go. The only way the spammer can do anything further is by creating a new account.

 

But that person keeps coming back. Isn't there a way you can ban him/her out for good, so that he/she can't even create a new account?

 

That would have to be an IP ban, to keep them out from their current location.

 

Like Krix said, we'd have to IP ban. However there are certain kinds of IPs we tend not to ban as the bans could catch innocent users. IPs used by mobile devices are an example. I have mobile internet for my laptop and I tend to come in on a different IP every time since the device selects from an available pool of free IPs. I know I have checked my IP addresses in the past using our Admin section and I can see IPs I've used that have other users on them as well. The users aren't related to me, nor are they in my location - they just come from the same pool.

 

Or they could be using VPN.

I see that there are some places in the JCF where the existence of the edit button has been changed, E.g. the EU section. Is there a possibility to changed that from 30 min to 1 hour in other sections in JCF? I think it is a good way to reduce spam.

 

I don't see how that would help reduce it. I think most spammers that we nail are more concerned about the amount of spam they can get out there rather than the quality (like correcting misspellings). That's why we try to clean up and ban them as quickly as possible.

 

It surely helps those of us who aren't like that. Instead of having to wait somebody has written something, which can end up in a pretty long wait, before you can write a new post, much better to just edit it into your previous post. I can think of a few places whcih that can be very helpful.

 

OK - you're talking about double posts. I was coming from the angle of the 'weight loss' and other spamvertising that we've been getting here. Best thing to do in your case is to take it up with the mods in that particular forum as we can change edit time in specific forums if it is warranted. However, we admins wouldn't do it on a whim - we'd want the forum mods to request it.

 

Aha, got it.

 

ideas to reduce spam from new users
during account setup
-have a star wars quiz asking questions about the movies that all fans would know so a person who is just here to advertise may not take the time to fill out or know.
-have a waiting period before a new user can post. If they have to wait a day they may just move on.

 

We do have a CAPTCHA system that uses SW-related questions already. The waiting period is an interesting idea but the legitimate fans that register do outweigh the spammers. I'd hate to put a barrier up against a user who intends to contribute to discussions here just to inconvenience a spammer.

 

Also, spam accounts don't always start spamming the day they register, so I don't think it would hamper them.

 

Site currently has a bunch of spam post

 

It is true, I'm sure I report around 5-10 spam posts during the morning time...European time

 

Yeah, most of the spammers seem to have IP addresses in Russia, China, or Easter Europe. So it makes sense that a lot of spam would occur during the Europe morning.

 

I reported a rash again before bed last night.

 

But I don't see many spams during the morning in a weekend...

 

I assume the spammers take the weekend off.