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Suggestion to help thwart the spambots

DiogoJ42

DiogoJ42

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Title says it all really.

My simple sugestion is to implement the rule that a lot of other forums have: new members can't start a topic until they have made X number of posts. It doesn't have to be a high number, but it would weed out the bots from real people.
The spam is always a new topic, not a post in an existing thread, so this one simple rule could help put an end to the spam problem.

Thoughts?
 
That's a good idea actually. Even enforcing making one post should work.

I've signed up to a number of forums purely to post a new topic regarding a question I have and I've been forced to make 5+ posts before I can make that topic. That's 5 posts they're asking for which didn't contribute to any discussion really. But as I say, 1 should do the trick.

:)
 
Thing is I'm not keen on implementing anything that makes new members feel unwelcome. On average we deal with about 1 spammer that makes it through the registration protection a day, not a massive amount by any means. We also tend to get rid of the topics within a couple of hours tops anyway. In the grand scheme of things, that isn't a massive amount, and I wouldn't say it's really affecting the forum experience in any major way for everyone else.

Also, the spammers don't always solely post new topics, there's a lot of replies in existing topics that crop up too, only they're dealt with fairly quickly by the team, and they don't create a notification in the shoutbox so aren't as noticeable as new topics.
 
I've never felt unwelcome joining a forum with such a rule, if anything I rather like the idea (can you tell? ;) ).
 
Whilst I understand the idea, I get what Craig says about a forum feeling 'unwelcoming' if new members can't make a topic until they've hit a certain amount of posts, or been on the forum for a certain length of time. Some people just want to ask a quick question, and may find they like the place and stick around afterwards. If they can't feel like they can ask anything, they might not even bother with the forum at all.

Spam bots are annoying, but they're usually dealt with within the hour. I often see people complaining about spam more than the actual spam itself! If we reached the level where there were on average several a day, then I could see the point in implementing Dogo's idea. At this moment in time, though, I feel the negatives outweigh the positives.
 
We have a quick questions topic for exactly that. There is no reason why they can't use it instead of having to create a new topic to ask a question.
Sorry, I just don't buy the "unwelcoming" angle. This place is a hippy commune compared to almost every other forum I've ever been a part of. It's standard practice to have to make a few posts before you get to start topics.
 
But is a few spambots making a topic or two which in general get removed within a couple of hours tops really making a huge difference to your browsing experience on the forum? Like Ashlee said, I see more people going on about them in the shout box than the spam topics themselves!

We've already got pretty substantial controls in the background that stop a large amount of spam registrations in the first place (often double figures per week). It all seems like quite a bit of overkill for what is ultimately a very minor problem in the grand scheme of things.

Also, it's worth remembering that the vast majority of these "bots" are actually people being paid to register and post on forums manually. If they can't create a new topic which obviously gives better prominence, they'll then just go to the next best thing which will be posting in an existing popular topic.
 
Going to back Craig on the fact our spam system is amazing at catching these things based on the notifications I get asking a team member to check its decisions.

Also I think you see in the shoutbox when a topic is created that the spam system has already caught and can't actually be seen on the forum. So only a small proportion of the notifications you see in shoutbox have actually made it public.
 
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Case in point, tonight. The software just knows when it's spam, even if it what's written isn't exactly that suspicious.

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