Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

sc0rp · 2018-07-10 11:19:04

I'm in Europe. Most or all moderators are in US, I guess. So for the whole day until afternoon my time 1/3 of the first page of main forum topics are spam. Maybe a plugin to stop spam will help:
https://fluxbb.org/forums/viewtopic.php … 092#p64092

Or at least appoint 1-2 more moderators from different timezones (Europe/Asia/Australia).

Chard · 2018-07-10 18:09:36

Hi sc0rp,

The current mod team are two in Europe and one in New Zealand.

I'll try and highlight your suggestion to Jason and the others and see what people think.

Thanks!

sc0rp · 2018-07-10 18:32:39

Another idea: I'm not familiar with FluxBB, but maybe there is some option or plugin that just hides messages reported as spam (by like 5+ people) until moderator can review it. I'm marking some topics as spam, but it doesn't seem to make any difference - they disappear at the same time as the rest.

jord1990 · 2018-07-10 22:04:21

things never get reported by 5+ people, as a matter of fact some post dont even get reported at all.

sc0rp · 2018-07-10 22:39:19

jord1990 wrote:

things never get reported by 5+ people, as a matter of fact some post dont even get reported at all.

Maybe because people think it's futile? I rarely report, because when I did, I haven't seen any difference.

Chard · 2018-07-10 22:56:08

sc0rp wrote:

jord1990 wrote:
things never get reported by 5+ people, as a matter of fact some post dont even get reported at all.
Maybe because people think it's futile? I rarely report, because when I did, I haven't seen any difference.

The current process is that mods pick up the reports when they log in; mods aren't notified immediately. All reports are looked at by at least one mod and either ignored or acted on. There is no feedback to the reporter. Our main function is dealing with spam threads.

sc0rp · 2018-07-11 00:54:31

Maybe it can be automated a little. First thing is to check the plug it I've linked - if it works, that may save a lot of tedious work.

If it doesn't, I think crowd-sourcing can do miracles. If some option or plugin can disappear temporarily topic reported as spam by few people, many would be happy to help (I would). Just enable it and ask people to help. I'm pretty sure it can work.

Last edited by sc0rp (2018-07-11 00:57:19)

sc0rp · 2018-07-11 16:49:19

Another reason that people may not report spam. When you do it, you cannot report another one for full minute. So reporting 5 spam topics takes 4 minutes.

jasonrohrer · 2018-07-11 16:54:47

I am already using a plugin to stop spam from bots.

But I'm pretty sure these are humans, not bots.

For a while, I had a question that only people interested in the game would care about. The idea is that human spammers wouldn't waste time. That worked pretty well. But some legit people had trouble finding the answer.

Then I switched back to "general human" questions. And now here we are. Humans are answering them!

Or maybe humans come through, answer them once, and program bots that come back later.

The only solution, it seems, is to keep changing the questions. Which is a real pain.

But given that it's humans, or at least humans hand-coding bots for this forum, I don't think that a honeypot with an invisible field will work.

sc0rp · 2018-07-11 17:26:20

jasonrohrer wrote:

Or maybe humans come through, answer them once, and program bots that come back later.

Recaptcha should work if that's the case.

Other idea then: hide topics reported as spam by one or two members with 10+ posts (until reviewed by moderator). Also lower cooldown for reporting spam (1 min is too long, at least for 5-10 first reports in a row). If people can see they can "disappear" spam pretty quicky, they will be more likely to report it. Right now reporting seems pointless (from POV of forum member), as it just waits there for moderator, and he will look at the list of main topics himself anyway.

jasonrohrer · 2018-07-11 17:37:58

Okay, did a quick bit of modification to the existing anti-spam plugin that I'm using.

It now randomly-generates a batch of 50 math problems. The problems are spelled out in english words (five hundred eighty-three) instead of numbers. And a new batch of 50 problems is generated every hour. So there's no way that a human can program a bot to remember the answers. No more fixed answers. They could program a bot to parse the english words, etc. But that would be quite a bit of work.

THUS... we will finally determine, for real, whether these spammers are humans or robots.

First of all, will the existing crop of spam go away tomorrow? If so, then we've been seeing hand-trained bots coming through.

And how long will it take them to come back?

sc0rp · 2018-07-12 09:03:02

jasonrohrer wrote:

Okay, did a quick bit of modification to the existing anti-spam plugin that I'm using.
It now randomly-generates a batch of 50 math problems.
[...]
THUS... we will finally determine, for real, whether these spammers are humans or robots.

Well, keto guys are back already. So, if that's custom modification to plugin, not just some option that you've switched, then we can be proud: we've got precious, hand crafted spam

Anshin · 2018-07-12 12:31:52

I'm quite happy to moderate.
I'm in EST timezone.
And I'm nearly always available online.
Jason, I'll send you a PM in Discord...

FounderOne · 2018-07-12 21:42:45

sc0rp wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
Okay, did a quick bit of modification to the existing anti-spam plugin that I'm using.
It now randomly-generates a batch of 50 math problems.
[...]
THUS... we will finally determine, for real, whether these spammers are humans or robots.
Well, keto guys are back already. So, if that's custom modification to plugin, not just some option that you've switched, then we can be proud: we've got precious, hand crafted spam

If it's like this we should honor their hard work and invite them to the game. If they work so hard what could they accomplish in a productive ohol day? I already see tousends of cakes getting baked.

Maybe make it that you need 5 post before you can open a newtopic. The work will get harder and the spanners will look for easier forums to spam

YAHG · 2018-07-12 23:22:31

Everything seems to be working fine from my view.
Lot less spam than on /pol/ and not even that many bait threads, just friendly jersey and diet-salesmen.

If we get a friendly water-filter salesmen can we keep him?

sc0rp · 2018-07-14 10:38:16

jasonrohrer wrote:

But given that it's humans, or at least humans hand-coding bots for this forum, I don't think that a honeypot with an invisible field will work.

That's not the main part. This one is:
https://fluxbb.org/resources/mods/spambarrier/
- Ability to control registrations and connections by querying the StopForumSpam database
- Ability to control registrations and connections with DNSBL servers

Not sure if it'll work in this case, but worth giving a try IMO. Currently more topics on first page of main forum are spam than there is real content.

Anshin · 2018-07-14 14:37:11

sc0rp wrote:

Currently more topics on first page of main forum are spam than there is real content.

I'm quite happy to delete this stuff all day long

jasonrohrer · 2018-07-16 15:57:41

Okay, along with the auto-generated, custom-coded math problems, I've also set it up so that new users cannot post links in their posts for the first 10 posts.

But guess what? The damn spammers have worked around this by posting links in their subject lines! I guess fluxbb devs didn't think of that....

Back to messing with fluxbb code myself again...

sc0rp · 2018-07-26 06:57:04

jasonrohrer wrote:

Okay, along with the auto-generated, custom-coded math problems, I've also set it up so that new users cannot post links in their posts for the first 10 posts.

It doesn't work - account has only two posts and embedded links:
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … 728#p25728

Also email and website links in left column.

Last edited by sc0rp (2018-07-26 06:59:55)

Chard · 2018-07-26 07:20:59

sc0rp wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
Okay, along with the auto-generated, custom-coded math problems, I've also set it up so that new users cannot post links in their posts for the first 10 posts.
It doesn't work - account has only two posts and embedded links:
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … 728#p25728
Also email and website links in left column.

Sleeper account. Registered 2018-07-06. Cleaned up.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-07-10 11:19:04

Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#2 2018-07-10 18:09:36

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#3 2018-07-10 18:32:39

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#4 2018-07-10 22:04:21

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#5 2018-07-10 22:39:19

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#6 2018-07-10 22:56:08

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#7 2018-07-11 00:54:31

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#8 2018-07-11 16:49:19

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#9 2018-07-11 16:54:47

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#10 2018-07-11 17:26:20

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#11 2018-07-11 17:37:58

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#12 2018-07-12 09:03:02

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#13 2018-07-12 12:31:52

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#14 2018-07-12 21:42:45

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#15 2018-07-12 23:22:31

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#16 2018-07-14 10:38:16

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#17 2018-07-14 14:37:11

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#18 2018-07-16 15:57:41

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#19 2018-07-26 06:57:04

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

#20 2018-07-26 07:20:59

Re: Anti spam plugin to stop spam on forum

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