The forums are being hit by spammers :(

[vincent]

I’ve seen 3 spammer posts, and I’ve been looking for like 3 minutes.

[TheDoc]

We’re working on it, I promise!

It’s hard to make the forums as accessible to people as possible, while still fighting spammers. In a lot of cases the spammers here aren’t bots, they are people. It’s impossible to fight against something like that. But, their IP does get banned at least!

[vincent]

Yeah, I’m not trying to blame you guys, I just wanted to notify. I know all too well what kinds of spammers are out there haha… I played World of Warcraft for like 4 years… Jesus. The gold farmers were RIDICULOUS. They would be spamming and whispering people all of the time. You can report them but, but it was pointless because more would just keep coming… I can’t wrap my head around how that kind of business is profitable… I mean you got warehouses of people sitting around filling out captchas and shit hoping one of the websites they post on doesn’t get deleted? And to what, make $2 for that day?

[TheDoc]

Actually, they make tons of money. You’d be surprised how many people buy gold.

[vincent]

True.

[Indubitable Turtle]

Spammers and trolls; the bane of a good forum.

I’m not sure how the phpBB mod panel is set up, and honestly haven’t tried this on my own forums yet, but why couldn’t one simply ban blacklisted IPs? There are several sites out there that list common spammer IPs. Of course, I fully realize the pain in the arse that is IP banning, but in some cases it’s worth the chances of a little less traffic. Just sort of thinking out loud here.

[Matt]

Has Chris tried integrating Askimet into the forums?

[Chris Coyier]

We’re fighting the good fight and doing the best we can. I’d say overall it’s going pretty well. Every bit of spam is blacklisted by IP forever, so that definitely helps over time. People can’t sign up unless they do a captcha AND click a link in an email, so it’s gotta be real humans doing most of it.

Since the upgrade, there have been 12,000 (!) attempted spam accounts, and only a handful get through, so I think we’re doing a pretty decent job. If people ever catch a nasty one, you can always email me directly at [email protected] and I’ll go zap it right away.

[vincent]

How is the report feature set up? (the little ! triangle on each post) I didn’t think about using that lol. Do you have it so when someone reports a post, it emails you, or do you have to check the forums? That might be an easy way for everyone, because I’m sure it would have the link to the post in the email and everything so it would be easy to get to.

[Rob MacKay]

yea if you could use that it really helps – as it just gives us an easy way of spotting it… most spam is a new topic – but sometimes they are sneaky :)

[Matt]

"chriscoyier" wrote:

Since the upgrade, there have been 12,000 (!) attempted spam accounts, and only a handful get through, so I think we’re doing a pretty decent job. If people ever catch a nasty one, you can always email me directly at [email protected] and I’ll go zap it right away.

I don’t mean to nag or anything, but I’m serious about the Askimet integration. It could nearly eliminate your spam problems. Anything I create, anymore, that has the ability to be commented on has some sort of askimet integration. The service is just wonderful.

[Rob MacKay]

it does really work well with WordPress – I will have a look at that Matt. :)

[Indubitable Turtle]

So will I, for my own forums! I didn’t know Akismet could be integrated into forums.

[Matt]

"Indubitable Turtle" wrote:

So will I, for my own forums! I didn’t know Akismet could be integrated into forums.

It can be integrated into just about anything. If somebody is spamming your toaster, give Askimet all the information you can and they’ll inform you if it’s spam. Just remember to put in Ham options just in case what it trashed isn’t really Spam. This helps make Askimet an even better service.

[Rob MacKay]

Just to update you lot – Chris and myself did a little digging today and although sparse there were some options. Tried one of the more promising ones and it broke the registration… the quest continues!!

[Author]

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