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shitsu_tonka
offlineMember
One forum I'm a member of has the policy that your first three posts only go public once they've been approved by a mod and it is made clear that that will happen whenever the mod can be arsed and not right away.
Even if here just the first post required mod approval that would probably be enough to stop people signing up just to spam.
This nightly Attack of The Spam is a bit kak.
Sinnick
offlineMember
I find the spam irritating, too. It won't go away, and I suspect if you have a rule like that they'll find a way past it - they need to to get paid. My current way of dealing with it is either ignore or laugh at it, and make a mental note never to buy products from those companies.
I think JoF seems to prefer a hands-off approach, but happy to pull the plug on anyone substantially misbehaving.
How one pulls a plug with no hands, though, is quite problematic.
bonjonelson
offlineMember
Ok. I run a major forum (280,000+ visitors a month), and we get very little spam.
Simple technical changes can fix it.
Most important rule. Make spammer links have no value. Ensure that every external link is rewritten with REL="NOFOLLOW" added to it.
Many spam scripts automate posting to sites - they look for registration forms and fill them in with details. My forms have used a very simple trick which doesn't need a CAPTCHA and catches almost all of these automated tricks.
Add some hidden fields with names that spammer scripts will think are important to complete, such as "subject" "postcode" "country" "email2" "address" or similar... These fields have a style of "display: none" so they are not seen by legitimate users, but spammer scripts will see them and be too tempted to fill them with something.
Your registration script looks for these values, if any are filled in, it silently rejects the registration.
JoF - If you don't know how to make these changes, ask someone who does. it's important, especially the REL="nofollow" one...
Sinnick
offlineMember
Very interesting, bonjo
A couple of thoughts:
1. How are valid external links permitted, eg a reference to a very witty picture in the Touchstone Magazine or some intellectual banter in the Daily Mail ?
2. I suspect JoF doesn't do this sort of thing himself, he trusts Deluxe Corporation to do the messy stuff, so you'll be needing to persuade them. And they'll have numerous other blogs/etc to manage within the same framework, so they'll all have to be convinced too, and will want keep external references, etc.
3. (no, I can't count). I think using a CAPTCHA at registration time is the best solution; other websites would probably go along with this - they'll be having the same issue
4. It might be appropriate, if you feel strongly enough about it, for JoF to introduce you to Deluxe Corp to try to work something out
Sinnick
offlineMember
More thoughts:
5. I wonder if some of the posts are by individuals rather than a spambot, in which case a CAPTCHA won't work. They'll be paid, say, £2 per successful post (a guess)
6. It might be possible to veto the domain part of the email sender - this would block spambots and hopefully many of the individual spammers
7. Blocking external links might interfere with the advertising - I don't mind, but JoF might object
Ironduke
offlineMember
I like the ready-access aspect of this site...you read something, you comment. If there was a delay (registering, awaiting 'mod' approval) that might detract from that.
I don't really get bugged by the spam at the moment. Still not sure if 'tantamount' was spam or not, but did rather enjoy that rambling nonsense. The polish verbal diarrhoea similarly brightened my day.
The All New Jeni B
offlineMember
I just skip past any spam.
But it has spawned some fab 'in-house' language ("Greet your family woman" and of course, "Tantamount")
I'm a technical illiterate, so have no suggestions as to how it could be dealt with, but I too like the ease with which we can post.
I also don't think that the sparsity in here is to do entirely with the spam, I've been busy elsewhere, and I'm sure many others have been too.
Greet your family woman...at least one occasion it was a real person, not a spambot.
I sent him some private messages.
He replied.
Lemon difficult
offlineMember
It is hard, but I personally endeavour to forebear the nightly attacks of spam as I did the dengue fly and native bearers gone wrong when navigating the Upper Limpopo. When especially harsh I took comfort in the Bible, contemplation of Mary Slessor's trials and Mrs Mulligan's Heroin cordial restorative. I hope that helps.
weematt
offlineMember
The point of login is a good place to start. A method using a login page with hidden fields, i.e. fields like address and phone number, that a machine will attempt to fill in and a person will not see can create a trap for spam bots.
That leaves the human spammers to deal with. The delayed acceptance of registration until first few posts are validated can help here.
After that the few determined spammer accounts can be deleted.
This site does not have a high amount of spamming, it just seems high since there are a relatively low quantity of posts.
Mind you, I did get myself some really nice trainers and a lovely handbag for Mrs weematt.
bonjonelson
offlineMember
The idea with REL=nofollow is that it won't affect our use of the site at all. The link is still allowed and shown here. All it does is stop Google counting the link as important - and stops the google bot from thinking that the link from newsbiscuit to spammyshoes.cn means we approve of the site and have added a link to it because we like it.
Wikipedia does REL=nofollow for all external links now.
It doesn't stop spammers from putting spam on your site, but it makes the spam FAR less valuable to them.
Most systems, such as wordpress, etc, have plugins that automate this REL=nofollow thing.
thisisall1word
offlineMember
Greet all your family woman...
one of my favourite lines ever from NB... not managed to insult anyone with this in real life yet; still time, still time...
Gerontius
offlineMember
Hmmmm
Seems to be a spammer with a grudge.
Can't see this latest attack as simply being random...it's a little more orchastrated and organised than that.
Spammers don't respond to criticism by increasing their spam output.
So WHO IS the Phantom Spammer?
A gilted lover, a failed WOTM wannabe, a scorned subber, a contributor who got tagged or simply a complete twat
beau-jolly
offlineMember
Three questions;
How did today's spammer choose the stories to dredge up?
How can I get them to bump my archive?
Does anyone want to buy some cheap running shoes?
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