Suggestion Here's my idea on how to stop spam.

[PrincessLillie]

There's been way too much spam lately. So, in order to stop this spam, I feel like we need to implement some extra layer of moderation.
So, what I propose is that a user who has under 100 posts or hasn't been signed up for at least a month has all threads and replies checked by a moderator before they go public. Of course, this should not apply to DMs.

 

[Meteor7]

Every bit of spam I've seen has had a url in the topic title, so a good first step might be to disallow that, adding a flag to the account of anyone who tries it. If they try posting again, it'll need reviewing by a moderator before it's seen.

 

[RustInPeace]

Please do. We all need to stay open minded despite these fucking bots running around and spamming up our beloved GBATemp.

No bots, there's only three members. One I dislike but I haven't seen recently. One I hate from a recent incident, and one that's starting to bug me.

 

[bennyman123abc]

No bots, there's only three members. One I dislike but I haven't seen recently. One I hate from a recent incident, and one that's starting to bug me.

How do you know them if they had 0 messages on their accounts?

 

[RustInPeace]

How do you know them if they had 0 messages on their accounts?

It's not even related to spam, I'm basically going off topic, they're prominent members let's just say and be done with it.

 

[bennyman123abc]

It's not even related to spam, I'm basically going off topic, they're prominent members let's just say and be done with it.

Fair enough. Back to the topic at hand. I like the "multiple messages before being able to create a thread" idea. However, the response rules need to be automatically enforced. Like, with a whitelist of some sort to prevent responses such as "yeah, totally" and "this is just a message to increase my message count bitches". You know, that sort of thing

 

[WeedZ]

There's been way too much spam lately. So, in order to stop this spam, I feel like we need to implement some extra layer of moderation.
So, what I propose is that a user who has under 100 posts or hasn't been signed up for at least a month has all threads and replies checked by a moderator before they go public. Of course, this should not apply to DMs.

This has been proposed before. We came to the conclusion that it would be too much work for staff. Another issue is that new members typically join in order to seek help or make contributions. For most people this moderation would be too frustrating and they're likely to not stick around.

 

[LinkBlaBla]

Every bit of spam I've seen has had a url in the topic title, so a good first step might be to disallow that, adding a flag to the account of anyone who tries it. If they try posting again, it'll need reviewing by a moderator before it's seen.

why not much simpler , like you need 25 message to post a thread ....i don't know why it is not like that i know many forum that use that as a counter against spam.
Of course you could make it less message to post or more , maybe even block certain content access like ex: EOF you need 500 message to post or so.

eh that just my idea.

edit: some users are very annoying with those useless content spam...

 

[WeedZ]

I haven't seen that much bot spam. And the ones I've seen in recent content I just ignore. Most of the spam comes from members that already have post counts in the thousands anyway.

 

[The Catboy]

Oh, I was thinking something more serious, like certain users messing up the community. I dealt with that at a porn forum, all we did was just ban the user. There's nothing better than that, the problem I guess is staff not being active enough. At least over there, I ended up being almost 24/7 so spam threads in the sections I modded were swiftly removed.

I remember a user not too long ago who was banned and then began spamming the forums with a bot. I can't recall their username, but I do recall the event.

 

[WeedZ]

I remember a user not too long ago who was banned and then began spamming the forums with a bot. I can't recall their username, but I do recall the event.

Is that the one everybody thought was margen? Cause I think that was jack sparrow or whatever

 

[The Catboy]

Is that the one everybody thought was margen? Cause I think that was jack sparrow or whatever

I think it was Jack, but honestly I've never heard a confirmed user.
There's actually been several events like that in the past. There was one user (can't recall the name,) who later turned around and became an NDS ROM dumper by the name of "Lamefuck." They used to include super anti-Temp messages in their ROM dumps.

 

[WeedZ]

I think it was Jack, but honestly I've never heard a confirmed user.
There's actually been several events like that in the past. There was one user (can't recall the name,) who later turned around and became an NDS ROM dumper by the name of "Lamefuck." They used to include super anti-Temp messages in their ROM dumps.

That's so petty

 

[The Catboy]

That's so petty

Now to relate these posts to the topic on hand, it does show that there's a lot of factors when dealing with a spambot
There's also a huge chance that the bot is either a person or was an account made by a human and then turned into a bot.
With the former user made bots, they are always a real person behind a VPN, signing up, then letting the bot take over. Without limiting newbies more, this is something impossible to overcome.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Sometimes (mostly in this forum) random accounts post ads about stuff like male enhancments and other shit

Though it's rarely male enhancements, it's mostly skin creams and health supplements, as if anyone on this website would care about that

There's been way too much spam lately. So, in order to stop this spam, I feel like we need to implement some extra layer of moderation.
So, what I propose is that a user who has under 100 posts or hasn't been signed up for at least a month has all threads and replies checked by a moderator before they go public. Of course, this should not apply to DMs.

This has been suggested before, and the general consensus was that the sheer volume of new users, nevermind new posts, on this site is way too high for the relatively small team of staff members to handle.
Maybe with enough Patreon backers, we'll have enough money to employ a couple people in different time zones to be full time spam busters

Every bit of spam I've seen has had a url in the topic title, so a good first step might be to disallow that, adding a flag to the account of anyone who tries it. If they try posting again, it'll need reviewing by a moderator before it's seen.

This has also been suggested before, and Costello said that they have a lot of anti-spambot measures in place that we might not notice, and the remaining spammers are most likely real people paid to spam, and that if they disallowed URLs in titles, the spammers would just change up their posts to bypass the filter and it would inconvenience legitimate users.
Which I agree with, there doesn't really seem to be any easy way to block spammers permanently, it's like Nintendo trying to patch all the hacks, they may be one step ahead but the hackers are never far behind and always find a way around it eventually.

I haven't seen that much bot spam. And the ones I've seen in recent content I just ignore. Most of the spam comes from members that already have post counts in the thousands anyway.

There isn't a whole lot of it, but if you're up at the times when the staff is usually asleep you start to see a pattern. The spammers always seem to post around the same time, knowing that the staff is likely asleep. It doesn't happen every day, but it always happens around the same time.
Getting a new staff member in a different time zone might help. They tend to post at nighttime/early morning in Europe and USA, so maybe get a staff member in Australia/NZ.

 

[PrincessLillie]

This has been suggested before, and the general consensus was that the sheer volume of new users, nevermind new posts, on this site is way too high for the relatively small team of staff members to handle.

Oh. Well, don't mind me then.

Maybe with enough Patreon backers, we'll have enough money to employ a couple people in different time zones to be full time spam busters

TBH I'd be a spam buster for the temp for no pay. Got nothing better to do in my free time.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Oh. Well, don't mind me then.

TBH I'd be a spam buster for the temp for no pay. Got nothing better to do in my free time.

They already have mods for that, but a full time employed person would be able to spend more time on it. I'm thinking 8 hours straight of nothing but watching GBAtemp and making sure no spambot posts last for more than 10 seconds, no matter the time of day. It would be a boring task, but hey, as long as you're getting paid for it...
Though, that might be a bit too much money just to avoid the 1-2 spambot threads we get a week

 

[Giodude]

Maybe people with a very high post count can be opted in for low level mod access or something, at least a low enough level just to check whether the new user's post is valid or not. All new messages from users under 100 posts can be pooled in one big place too maybe?

 

[Quantumcat]

Though it's rarely male enhancements, it's mostly skin creams and health supplements, as if anyone on this website would care about that

This has been suggested before, and the general consensus was that the sheer volume of new users, nevermind new posts, on this site is way too high for the relatively small team of staff members to handle.
Maybe with enough Patreon backers, we'll have enough money to employ a couple people in different time zones to be full time spam busters

This has also been suggested before, and Costello said that they have a lot of anti-spambot measures in place that we might not notice, and the remaining spammers are most likely real people paid to spam, and that if they disallowed URLs in titles, the spammers would just change up their posts to bypass the filter and it would inconvenience legitimate users.
Which I agree with, there doesn't really seem to be any easy way to block spammers permanently, it's like Nintendo trying to patch all the hacks, they may be one step ahead but the hackers are never far behind and always find a way around it eventually.

There isn't a whole lot of it, but if you're up at the times when the staff is usually asleep you start to see a pattern. The spammers always seem to post around the same time, knowing that the staff is likely asleep. It doesn't happen every day, but it always happens around the same time.
Getting a new staff member in a different time zone might help. They tend to post at nighttime/early morning in Europe and USA, so maybe get a staff member in Australia/NZ.

I'd be up for that

 

[migles]

since theese bots usually try to sell suplements viagra or something
what about a script that if an user just created an account and creates a thread, the script\bot will look for thoose specific words, and automatically hide the thread and suspend the person with a warning until a mod takes the defenitive action?

 

[FAST6191]

You can do that, this is how it ends up
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/03/bofh_2005_episode_18/