help on new spam control idea

sdetweil

this made a lot of help
https://forum.magicmirror.builders/topic/16582/forum-controls-to-stop-more-spam

but we still get a good amount of junk.

I want to minimize it even more

we currently don’t have any pre-posting moderation enabled. but I’d like to leverage that

most spam users 98%+ are advertising their stuff some link in the page.

so, why not combine those two

reputation < 2
or
posts < 3
will start a post towards the moderation queue
this is the built in moderation queue setup

add on a check for any links

if they are in the good host list, skip the queue
(almost all good users)

but not in the allowed link hosts,
and their post continues to the moderation queue.

so the top of my head list of links hosts

here
    forum.magicmirror.builders

doc
    docs.magicmirror.buikders

modules
    gitHub.com

raspberrypi stuff
    raspberrypi.org

screen shot site
    pastebin.com

remember, this is new users, < 3 posts, or low rep
(reputation is increased by someone upvoting one of your posts)

what do you think of this idea, and do you have any other good site servers that should be on the list.

trying to keep the impact on good new users to as close to zero as possible, and keep the spam away with the least amount of work.

this way, the bad stuff just never shows.

I have a plugin built for the nodebb forum platform we use… testing now.
just deciding if a post should continue to moderation or not.
there is an admin screen for adding/deleting hosts.

MMRIZE

@sdetweil
Have you considered antispam plugin like spam-be-gone, askimet,…?

sdetweil

@MMRIZE already have those installed

mumblebaj

@sdetweil Sounds good but there are still guys who resurrect very old posts asking stupid questions. I think I saw one yesterday that did that. That would up the rep and off they go and post their nonsense again. I know, not helping, just pointing out some observations. :man_facepalming:

sdetweil

@mumblebaj no… uping the rep requires someone to push like on a post
if u have less that 3 posts and 10 days, you cannot upvote…

but it takes someone upvoting YOUR post to increase YOUR rep… not theirs…

so, new users can’t upvote, til they get 3 AND 10 days have passed…
and if someone DOWN votes their post, their rep goes down…

and can NEVER upvote their own posts

yes, that is the escape… posting nonsense on an old/dead topic…
(with no links for my plugin to check)
I still filter those out manually

someone else has a plugin the geolocates the poster’s ip address… but we have valid users from all over the world, so that doesn’t really help.

cyberphox

@sdetweil I’m all for less spam!

BKeyport

I’m all for less spam, that being said, I don’t mind my nearly nightly marking of posts as spam and users as spammers. 😉

kayakbabe

how about allow nodejs.org and www.npmjs.com too.

kayakbabe

@kayakbabe It think posts that have certain spammy words or phrases could be added to moderation too like

now hiring
buy now
be your own boss
additional income
limited time
earn money
get rich
I enjoyed your post
You write very well
I offer you
I was reading this article and find it very informative

There are obvious ones that recur here but I can’t think of them right now.

Also how about no including links for new users until they make x number of allowed posts. I run some sites and we get visited by human spammers who will make two or three comments to try to get the posts with links to show. Usually it’s garbage, ipso lorem, or something that just doesn’t make sense. So I just moderate all posts that include links from users with less than 10 number of good posts. Or, I can go ahead a mark a user as moderation exempt if I determine them to be legit.

kayakbabe

What about reCaptcha required to submit a post for new users for the first x number of posts?

sdetweil

@kayakbabe said in help on new spam control idea:

Also how about no including links for new users until they make x number of allowed posts.

this hurts real new users struggling to get their stuff running,
worked for a couple days/weeks to get it to work and finally find this and post…
and if we put them on the mod queue then they might miss a whole day til their post arrives and someone can help them…

sdetweil

@kayakbabe said in help on new spam control idea:

What about reCaptcha required to submit a post for new users for the first x number of posts?

why whack the good new users?

i go thru all new posts every morning and watch them all day long…
just trying to reduce the work and the amount of goo that shows up

kayakbabe

@sdetweil said in help on new spam control idea:

why whack the good new users?

Well, I was thinking that

I don’t find it horribly annoying especially if it’s the kind that just makes you pick the object from a grid of photos. It doesn’t take too long and it does keep the spam bots from posting. I don’t particularly like it… but I don’t find it horrible either – especially if it stops happening after I’m a member in good standing. You could base it on reputation points. After reputation is gained… then no more reCaptcha. Or if we don’t have the issue with bots… then forget I mentioned it.

kayakbabe

@sdetweil said in help on new spam control idea:

Also how about no including links for new users until they make x number of allowed posts.

this hurts real new users struggling to get their stuff running,
worked for a couple days/weeks to get it to work and finally find this and post…
and if we put them on the mod queue then they might miss a whole day til their post arrives and someone can help them…

Good Point.

ankonaskiff17

Any way you can Pi-Hole or Pi-Hole white list and black list.
That project has been around forever and I imagine that they have a large database of bad actors.

sdetweil

@ankonaskiff17 said in help on new spam control idea:

nah, thats just as bad, always new stuff appearing… don’t want to wait on others…

we can just turn on moderation…

i was trying to be considerate…

had a stinky one today, 11 posts of useless one sentence garbage , but no links…

sdetweil

we just turned on post moderation

anyone with rep below 2, your posts will be reviewed.

sorry to the newbies. but gotta keep the crud out

RoyCormi

Another option to control spam is to create a list of spam words for your forum. Members using these words in a post or comment get an error message and are blocked from publishing. For instance, spammy keywords contain the words: locksmith, loan, casino, and crypto…

sdetweil

@RoyCormi already do that.