Enemies at the Gate
Enemies at the Gate
Hey everybody!
Haven't you all noticed how the numbers of spammers are really starting to increase around here? What's worse, now they're not content with just clogging up the member's list, they're starting to pollute the boards themselves.
I'm just wondering if there's anything that we(namely Troy) can do to stop it? Like ban all those addresses for life or something? It seems like a waste of time to just go in and delete them one all one at a time manually.
Haven't you all noticed how the numbers of spammers are really starting to increase around here? What's worse, now they're not content with just clogging up the member's list, they're starting to pollute the boards themselves.
I'm just wondering if there's anything that we(namely Troy) can do to stop it? Like ban all those addresses for life or something? It seems like a waste of time to just go in and delete them one all one at a time manually.
Avatar by Graynar
- SavaTheAggie
- Lord Sava of Aggie
- Posts: 2419
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:36 am
- Location: Houston
- Contact:
Yes, it is a problem. I've just deleted and banned 9 users, and two posts to the forum from them. I've had to delete and ban some 40-50 users in the last three days.
Ugh.
--Tony
Ugh.
--Tony
[url=http://www.ikros.net][img]http://www.ikros.net/links/ikrosbuttonsmall.jpg[/img][/url]
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day.
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day.
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I want to publicly recognize that yours is not a thankless job:
Tony -- thank you for all the work you do on our behalf. Same goes for Troy, the Admins, and the Mods.
Alan
Tony -- thank you for all the work you do on our behalf. Same goes for Troy, the Admins, and the Mods.
Alan
I'm a human BEING, not a human doing!
The two most important days of your life are the day you are born
and the day you discover why. (Donald Sensing)
One plus one equals three... for large values of one. (Bruce Fournier)
The two most important days of your life are the day you are born
and the day you discover why. (Donald Sensing)
One plus one equals three... for large values of one. (Bruce Fournier)
- Remyth
- Trade King
- Posts: 1855
- Joined: Sun Apr 02, 2006 3:43 am
- Location: At the corner of Nowhere Avenue and Not Close to Anything Street
- Contact:
I absolutely agree with this post. I think that I speak for everyone when I say Thanks You Very Much Admins and Moderators!footsteps wrote:I want to publicly recognize that yours is not a thankless job:
Tony -- thank you for all the work you do on our behalf. Same goes for Troy, the Admins, and the Mods.
Alan
In Christ,
Thomas Wunz <><
"A nameless, shapeless beast from the dark underside of Chat." - Josh Wedin
[url=http://flickr.com/photos/11381994@N00/]Flickr[/url]
"A nameless, shapeless beast from the dark underside of Chat." - Josh Wedin
[url=http://flickr.com/photos/11381994@N00/]Flickr[/url]
- smcginnis
- Justiciar
- Posts: 1868
- Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:00 pm
- Location: Santa Rosa, California
- Contact:
Yes, thank you (Admins & Mods) for doing what you do.
I'm not sure how, but maybe a way to stop spammers more would be to update the registering process. I know that there's already certain e-mails blocked and also that case-sensitive thing, but there might be something more you could do.... For instance, since a lot of the spammers seem to be selling prescription drugs, you could ban urls or e-mails that had common medicines in them (like 'valium' for example—there seem to be quite a lot of those), and make it so that if they have those anywhere on the registry form, they can't sign up.
~smcginnis
I'm not sure how, but maybe a way to stop spammers more would be to update the registering process. I know that there's already certain e-mails blocked and also that case-sensitive thing, but there might be something more you could do.... For instance, since a lot of the spammers seem to be selling prescription drugs, you could ban urls or e-mails that had common medicines in them (like 'valium' for example—there seem to be quite a lot of those), and make it so that if they have those anywhere on the registry form, they can't sign up.
~smcginnis
Learning French.
Say it "ESS-MICK-GIN-ISS", with a hard "G", as in "get".
I'm a Pumpkin.
[url=http://www.freerice.com/]Free Rice[/url]
Say it "ESS-MICK-GIN-ISS", with a hard "G", as in "get".
I'm a Pumpkin.
[url=http://www.freerice.com/]Free Rice[/url]
I am a member of the phpbb forum where they talk about things like forum security, etc. There are programs people have written that you can upload and integrate with your forum software that will prevent these bots from registering. Chech out this page where they make mention of a program that makes you answer simple questions in order to register your account, things like "Are you a human?" and "What is 2 + 3?". These are questions any person can easily answer, but they will stump a bot (computer program that seeks out forums and registers these fake accounts). Troy I suggest you seriously consider getting something like this. I know I am going to make the suggestion for the DBPro forum I mod. We get probably 15-30 bot accounts each month.
[url=http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=RecluceMage]Custom cast helmets and hairpieces![/url]
[url=http://www.dabelbrothers.com/home.html][img]http://www.maj.com/gallery/RecluceMage/Pict ... banner.gif[/img][/url]
[url=http://www.dabelbrothers.com/home.html][img]http://www.maj.com/gallery/RecluceMage/Pict ... banner.gif[/img][/url]
I haven't really noticed the increase, or many spammers at all on the boards. I guess this is a testament to how well the admins do their job.
Steve
Steve
[url=http://www.johnny-thunder.blogspot.com/]Travel with Johnny Thunder![/url]
- Troy
- King Mnementh the Bronze
- Posts: 304
- Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 3:38 am
- Location: Cleveland, Ohio
- Contact:
I will look into the mods on that page, but we already have visual confirmation turned on (where you get the image of a code word and have to enter it is) which is supposed to deter spambots. I suspect that what we are dealing with are actual people in India somewhere getting paid $2/day to get the bots passed the visual confirmation step.
Troy
Troy
Visit Troy's Surplus LEGO
http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=mnementh
http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=mnementh
Can you make it so that the admins have to ok an account before it can post? I've seen that on some sites, and I didn't know if it would work here.
[url=http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=HenrytheV]My Bricklink Store[/url]
Seems like a good method to me, but it will result is a lot of more work for the admins. But comparing to the work the need to do now with all these spammers, maybe it isnt much more.Can you make it so that the admins have to ok an account before it can post? I've seen that on some sites, and I didn't know if it would work here.
Ristridin--Rider on the storm--[url]http://brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?m=ristridin[/url]
[img]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/michkh/11112.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/michkh/11112.jpg[/img]
- architect
- Baron von Ellermann
- Posts: 3708
- Joined: Mon Sep 08, 2003 5:10 pm
- Location: Saint Louis, MO USA
- Contact:
I think our current method is best. One of the strengths of CC is that it is easy for members to join and participate. Lugnet has suffered in recent years because it is so difficult to join. I would not want CC to have the same problems.Ristridin wrote:Seems like a good method to me, but it will result is a lot of more work for the admins. But comparing to the work the need to do now with all these spammers, maybe it isnt much more.Can you make it so that the admins have to ok an account before it can post? I've seen that on some sites, and I didn't know if it would work here.
Ben
CC Sets Admin
I never really understood what spammers are. However it seems to me that by not allowing people to put a website in their profile it will defeat their purpose(unless I am misunderstanding what they are), I`ts not like so many of us care about showing a site on our profiles.
I've been let back on, zip-adee-doo-dah!
- Bruce N H
- Precentor of the Scriptorium
- Posts: 6311
- Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2003 9:11 pm
- Location: Middle Zealand
- Contact:
I disagree. Those little icons at the bottom of everyone's post are links to things like e-mail, website, AIM, PM, etc. All of those come from your profile and are the ways we can interact. In this thread alone you can find links to Tony's personal website, Troy's Bricklink shop, and four other people's Brickshelf galleries. If you want a quick link-list of castle fan sites, go to the member list and see people's links.ZIGGY! wrote:I`ts not like so many of us care about showing a site on our profiles.
Bruce
[url=http://comicbricks.blogspot.com/]ComicBricks[/url] [url=http://godbricks.blogspot.com/]GodBricks[/url] [url=http://microbricks.blogspot.com/]MicroBricks[/url] [url=http://minilandbricks.blogspot.com/]MinilandBricks[/url] [url=http://scibricks.blogspot.com/]SciBricks[/url] [url=http://vignettebricks.blogspot.com/]VignetteBricks[/url] [url=http://www.classic-castle.com/bricktales/]Brick Tales[/url]
- Lord_Of_The_LEGO
- Earl of Wells
- Posts: 2954
- Joined: Thu Oct 23, 2003 6:20 pm
- Location: Eureka, CA
- Contact:
No.ZIGGY! wrote:understand
And I agree with Bruce.
In the process of converting to [url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanwells/]Flickr[/url].