About the spam trols
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unemployed humans doing it I'm sure… Or maybe employed as spammer humans....
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…and I always thought that quoting a spam message in total is worse than the (already deleted) spam itself.
It seems to be arabic or so which I can neither read nor understand. Probably it's not just advertising Viagra.
IF it is any kind of a radical statement I wouldn't want this to still be readable, would I? Anyone knows what it's about (google translator doesn't). -
…and I always thought that quoting a spam message in total is worse than the (already deleted) spam itself.
Just as bad I guess, I snipped out the spam text.
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@Mr.:
<snipped spam="">1.Post limit for new members?
2. Restricted board for new members?</snipped>I don't know if this forum software allows for it, but I once was a mod at a economics forum, and we used IPB. In there, the above two suggestions were standard functionality we used. Can SMF do this too, perhaps, especially the second one?
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Anyone else noticed most all the spam in recent months happens at about the time India and similar parts of the world are starting work for the day? Makes me wonder how much of it now is people behind a keyboard rather than bots that are hitting us here at least.
@Mr.:
@Mr.:
<snipped spam="">1.Post limit for new members?
2. Restricted board for new members?</snipped>I don't know if this forum software allows for it, but I once was a mod at a economics forum, and we used IPB. In there, the above two suggestions were standard functionality we used. Can SMF do this too, perhaps, especially the second one?
Yes, though that'd be an inconvenience as much as it'd help anything. Quite often new users register to contribute to an existing thread, and that'd make it painful for them to do so. Some of those include some very smart people who contribute significantly in a small number of posts. John Brzozowski, Chief Architect of IPv6 at Comcast is one that comes to mind, though there are several others.
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Is it possible to stop new users posting URLs or at least make them non-clickable?
Steve
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I've slowly been exploring Discourse as an option to migrate to: http://www.discourse.org/
Twitter, among others, uses it for their developer community: https://twittercommunity.com/
Someone has written a migration tool for SMF 2 (that still needs to be looked at and tested): https://meta.discourse.org/t/importer-for-simple-machines-2-forums/17656
Sam and Jeff come from StackExchange where they had a lot of experience with dealing with spam and have some interesting solutions: https://meta.discourse.org/t/what-about-the-spam-problem/2724/6
Also, it isn't PHP, is mobile friendly, etc.
There is no time frame on the potential migration, but Discourse has a pretty hefty lead at this point.
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My vote is stay SMF. (that is if I have one… ;D )
Ive been on many different forums and seems to me the spammers have ways into any of them. They seem to propagate to the forums with the most traffic and hover there.
Staying vigilant about deleting their posts and accounts quickly seems paramount to making them feel unwelcome.
Seems like those most successful at halting them at the gate have an approval process that takes lots of time.
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My vote is stay SMF. (that is if I have one… ;D )
Everyone's opinion is welcome. Whether or not they hold any weight is at our discretion. ;D We definitely put heavy weight towards the majority opinions of community members in manners such as these.
My vote, at this instant at least, is to stay with SMF as well. Maybe there's a compelling reason to move to a new platform at some point, but I don't see one right now. I'm not opposed to change if there is a better option at some point.
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Good luck killing all the spam.
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if it's too much work to deal with spam, then esf should ask for / appoint some more mods , to help deal with the spamming.
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Just to be clear, this is something I have mostly been doing on my free time out of personal interest in methods of community organizing. I only replied because the subject came up in this thread. SMF has and continues to do a great job for us and looks healthy: https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1/graphs/contributors
To me forum software has basically been different flavors of the same lollipop until more recently where some interesting solutions to organizing online communities and their generated discussions have been tried and tested.
In terms of spam, I view putting creative locks on the front door and assigning certain people the privilege of hitting anything with a bat that looks like spam that comes though as a little old school (but still necessary mind you). When possible I prefer to arm everyone (well this analogy escalated quickly) and leave bouncers as a last resort.
Spam also wasn't the only "problem" I was trying to see has been solved more elegantly elsewhere. Other features of note:
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just-in-time loading so you don't have to slog through pages if you forget what page a post was on
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one level threaded comments (on the fence, but seems to prove useful in a Q&A support scenario): http://blog.codinghorror.com/discussions-flat-or-threaded/
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live preview of reply text, with out having to leave the context of the thread.
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comprehensive API
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community moderation (i.e. arming everyone)
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so much more: http://www.discourse.org/about/
If this ever gets to a point where I have tested it and feel comfortable with a migration, there would be plenty of community input pre and post migration as before: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,65565.0.html, but for now it is merely one idea of many.
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I think there should be a quiz before you can post. It would be beneficial to stop both spam and the same questions over and over again. Example:
To allow pfSense traffic from LAN hosts to the Internet, any necessary firewall rules must be placed on which interface?
- WAN
- LAN
- Both WAN and LAN
- No firewall rules are necessary.
See Also: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Firewall_Rule_Troubleshooting#Interface_Selection
Maybe a couple of those at random…
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I think there should be a quiz before you can post. It would be beneficial to stop both spam and the same questions over and over again. Example:
To allow pfSense traffic from LAN hosts to the Internet, any necessary firewall rules must be placed on which interface?
- WAN
- LAN
- Both WAN and LAN
- No firewall rules are necessary.
See Also: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Firewall_Rule_Troubleshooting#Interface_Selection
Maybe a couple of those at random…
Oooh, I like that a lot. 2 birds, 1 stone. :)
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The actual level of spam doesn't seem like a big problem currently. IMHO.
Steve
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Me too - I haven't noticed much spam. Seems under control…
On a seperate note, please click the links below for great savings (-:
www.buymyjunk-itssuperawesome.com
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Seems legit….. :P
Steve
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Me too - I haven't noticed much spam. Seems under control…
On a seperate note, please click the links below for great savings (-:
www.buymyjunk-itssuperawesome.com
I know you have a lot of (maybe not super-awesome) junk. So disappointed that the URL does not resolve :(
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I'm actually penniless and junk-less. I was hacked and had my identity stolen once… After a short time, they returned it. Thats how bad it is.
But yes - I don't think spam is such a problem now. I think seeking perfection is a fools errand. For great expense you could perhaps do a little better but its not worth it.
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I think seeking perfection is a fools errand.
I know at least 3 people (2 on this forum and 1 in my personal life), 1 company and 1 country who'd disagree with you ;D
