Bot's / Spam?

[BSG_Lambrik]

Heyho everyone,

I'm pretty new here and more a lurking-type of person.
But whenever I check the forums for new Content / Discussions I find some people (maybe bots?!) posting new Threads with just a link as topic name and the description of some (not rmmv related) content /products they try to sell.

Everytime i see it i'll click the report button but it's getting annoying and in my opinion this gives the whole forum a pretty trashy look... but this may be my personal op.

So maybe change the "anti-bot" system or sth like that... just to make it harder for them.
(if they are sth like sponsors than just change the way they post stuff on this forum)

Greetings Lambrik

 

[Xilefian]

The best way to combat forum spam bots is to not use a forum login system but depend on 3rd party registration and login, like "Sign in with Google" or similar; that way spammers would need a real account on one of these services which would then put that account up as a risk if they were to spam from it.

There's a number of problems with implementing this solution (covering all the basis for global social accounts - China is a big issue here [Tencent’s QQ, Weibo?]), but it's definitely the best way to solve the problem and it also improves the website's overall security (moves the password responsibility away from the website and dumps it onto larger 3rd parties who are better equipped to handle this stuff and have far more at risk if security breaches were to happen).

From the various forums I administrate (both among and outside of the RPG Maker community), I can say that a lot of these spammers tend to be actual people employed to post spam on message boards, rather than robots. Robot checking helps, but the real thing that packs the punch is social-sign-in, nothing really beats that.

 

[Amysaurus]

Good points all around, yup! The captcha worked for a while, but they only help for a few weeks at most. I was hoping for at least a moderation queue for new members' posts to be implemented, but that suggestion never really went anywhere. I definitely agree that going with a social sign-in would be the best approach moving forward.

I'd like to say I can do more than mark it as spam and have it removed, but no such luck at the moment. For what it's worth, I really appreciate you reporting spam when you see it.

 

[MinisterJay]

I notice them when I login. Certain areas tend to be their favored spots. I can mark them as spam, which removes them non-staff view, and when I see enough marked as spam, I can permanently delete them. Xyphien has used quite a few Captcha options, as Amy referenced. They usually work for a very short amount of time. I will contact him, and see if other options are viable. Thanks for voicing your concerns.

 

[Xyphien]

Alright, I just made it so members lower than 50 posts cannot post any links. However, once you get to your 50th post you'll then be able to post links. I've also made it so if you have lower than 50 posts and try going around this by doing something like www rpgmakermv co it'll mark it as spam and put it up for moderation. This will hopefully cut down on spam a lot, as well as if someone is dedicated enough to spam the site they'd have to at least contribute prior to getting banned for spam :)