Suggestion Limiting new users to 1 thread, then a cooldown timer. We also need more staff

[The Catboy]

Newbies need to be limited to being only able to make 1 thread then a cooldown. This kind of spam is making the forums a mess

Reporting them isn’t enough to deal with them when it honestly shouldn’t happen in the first place. A new user shouldn’t be allowed to completely spam the forums with nothing slowing them down. My suggestion is that just as the title says, limit them to 1 thread then add a cooldown before they can make another thread. This cooldown could honestly be whatever time the staff feels would be helpful, I think 15-30 minutes is a pretty decent time frame.

I also think there needs to be more staff members. The fact that we often only see 1 to 2 staff online while the forums are being spammed sucks. Maybe add low level staff that only does spam bot clean up? Just something to deal with the fact that the site is constantly being spammed.

Seriously, this is all of the spam being posted during the time of writing this post and after this thread was made

 

[Chary]

Most people join to ask a question with a thread. That's how noobs roll. Making them wait a day would be atrociously user unfriendly. New users don't want to post on mega threads either, or hunt for the right thread to post when they're already confused about something. Make it easy, make it simple, and you have people who stick around for the long haul because it's an enjoyable user friendly site. Having a prevention on making any threads out of the gate would drive people away. Manual approval is equally as bad an idea in terms of making noobs want to not use the site at all.

Also, don't go around saying the staff isn't doing anything regarding spambots. The mod team doesn't disclose every tiny server change and add-on attempt. We're always listening and trying to make the site better for our userbase.

 

[Scarlet]

Most people join to ask a question with a thread. That's how noobs roll. Making them wait a day would be atrociously user unfriendly. New users don't want to post on mega threads either, or hunt for the right thread to post when they're already confused about something. Make it easy, make it simple, and you have people who stick around for the long haul because it's an enjoyable user friendly site. Having a prevention on making any threads out of the gate would drive people away. Manual approval is equally as bad an idea in terms of making noobs want to not use the site at all.

Also, don't go around saying the staff isn't doing anything regarding spambots. The mod team doesn't disclose every tiny server change and add-on attempt. We're always listening and trying to make the site better for our userbase.

Oh I think they mean let them post one thread and limit them to that one per day, which honestly does sound reasonable. I can't see many new users needing to post 10 threads in their first day. Maybe two if they want to do an introduction and then their actual issue.

 

[AdenTheThird]

Most people join to ask a question with a thread. That's how noobs roll. Making them wait a day would be atrociously user unfriendly. New users don't want to post on mega threads either, or hunt for the right thread to post when they're already confused about something. Make it easy, make it simple, and you have people who stick around for the long haul because it's an enjoyable user friendly site. Having a prevention on making any threads out of the gate would drive people away. Manual approval is equally as bad an idea in terms of making noobs want to not use the site at all.

Also, don't go around saying the staff isn't doing anything regarding spambots. The mod team doesn't disclose every tiny server change and add-on attempt. We're always listening and trying to make the site better for our userbase.

I think a full day waiting period would be redundant and overkill. A one thread limit every half an hour until, say, the user reaches Level 2 is more than enough time to catch spambots before they become a nuisance.

 

[The Catboy]

Most people join to ask a question with a thread. That's how noobs roll. Making them wait a day would be atrociously user unfriendly. New users don't want to post on mega threads either, or hunt for the right thread to post when they're already confused about something. Make it easy, make it simple, and you have people who stick around for the long haul because it's an enjoyable user friendly site. Having a prevention on making any threads out of the gate would drive people away. Manual approval is equally as bad an idea in terms of making noobs want to not use the site at all.

Also, don't go around saying the staff isn't doing anything regarding spambots. The mod team doesn't disclose every tiny server change and add-on attempt. We're always listening and trying to make the site better for our userbase.

I am just annoyed that advice is so quickly dismissed. This has been an ongoing issue for a hot minute now and it’s impossible to fix but at least the staff can be open to suggestions to slow it down.
I think 30 minutes between opening new threads and 5 minutes between posting on preexisting threads is inconveniences to at least slow down the spam. It’s an inconveniences for newbies but honestly making the post cap to like 10 or 20 wouldn't make it too much of an effort for them reach and remove the limits.

 

[AdenTheThird]

I am just annoyed that advice is so quickly dismissed. This has been an ongoing issue for a hot minute now and it’s impossible to fix but at least the staff can be open to suggestions to slow it down.
I think 30 minutes between opening new threads and 5 minutes between posting on preexisting threads is enjoy to at least slow down the spam. It’s an inconvenience for newbies but honestly making the post cap to like 10 or 20 wouldn't make it too much of an effort for them reach and remove the limits.

Worth noting that post limits for new users aren't unheard of on other forums as well. It's a fairly standard anti-spam measure.
I agree that spam has been unusually rampant lately and it's obvious that it won't go away until something changes on our end.

 

[plasma]

Yeah something has to change. Most of the time when I come to check GBAtemp, the latest threads is just spam and phone numbers. Having a thread creation limit for new users could mitigate the issue, but it's giving the feeling that the people in charge don't really care.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Most people join to ask a question with a thread. That's how noobs roll. Making them wait a day would be atrociously user unfriendly. New users don't want to post on mega threads either, or hunt for the right thread to post when they're already confused about something. Make it easy, make it simple, and you have people who stick around for the long haul because it's an enjoyable user friendly site. Having a prevention on making any threads out of the gate would drive people away. Manual approval is equally as bad an idea in terms of making noobs want to not use the site at all.

Also, don't go around saying the staff isn't doing anything regarding spambots. The mod team doesn't disclose every tiny server change and add-on attempt. We're always listening and trying to make the site better for our userbase.

They can make their one thread, and keep posting on it every 5 minutes.
Then the next day they could even make another new thread.
I don't see any problem.

<grumpy old man>

Also, if they can't wait one day then let them go... who cares about users that don't have any patience.

</grumpy old man>

 

[tech3475]

One thing I noticed earlier was a spammer also posting in a pre-existing topic, so I think you would also need a cool down on the amount of posts in any given time.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Damn, that's a lot of loans... I'd feel suffocated by it if it were me.

That was more of a joke, but it does happen in real life when people can't pay their debts and gets too high.

Anyway, I agree.

 

[Bladexdsl]

I'm curious, if it's possible to pass messages through some bayesian filter (e.g., spamassassin or similar)? The concept would be not to allow to post the message at all, if it is being detected as a spam message by the filter. Of course there will be some training needed, but in general it *should* work.

the problem with that is when someone tries to make a post and the filter recognizes certain words etc in their post and than denies their post it pisses them off. I know this from experience trying to post something on another forum only to have the whole post denied and deleted and i have to type all over again even though the post had nothing to do with any spam

 

[k0walski]

the problem with that is when someone tries to make a post and the filter recognizes certain words etc in their post and than denies their post it pisses them off. I know this from experience trying to post something on another forum only to have the whole post denied and deleted and i have to type all over again even though the post had nothing to do with any spam

Usually spam filters (at least how it works with postfix MTA) have to be trained on a number of messages (not less than 200 for spam and ham types) before they actually start to filter. The number, however, doesn't need to be exactly this. It just depends on settings. Also, it's more like an example. Because, as it's already been said, some use VPN for different reasons, some may trap into the case when the IP address of a particular ISP gets blocked due to a large number of spam bots coming from it (e.g., because somebody's host system got infected with a trojan or something and became a part of a botnet), while another person unintentionally may either have the same external IP, or just get this IP due to IP address rotation for home networks... So, in fact, blocking IP addresses might not be that efficient. Just my thought.

 

[The Catboy]

While generally I support the idea of a cool down time, I think it won't generally solve the problem. It will be just stretched in time frame. I'm curious, if it's possible to pass messages through some bayesian filter (e.g., spamassassin or similar)? The concept would be not to allow to post the message at all, if it is being detected as a spam message by the filter. Of course there will be some training needed, but in general it *should* work.

That honestly sounds like a lot of work and also is way too easy to get around.

 

[k0walski]

That honestly sounds like a lot of work and also is way too easy to get around.

Well, as far as I understand, the filtering now includes some sort of a word filter + IP ban? Plus a lot of moderator work who really do it to clean up the mess with the spam bots (thanks, honestly). Training potential spam filter shouldn't be difficult (considering it is possible to attach it to the server).

I guess there is another possible solution. If a number of registered users mark some posts as spam (e.g., 10-15 users do so), all the recent posts of that particular user, e.g., within one hour, are made hidden, and the user gets locked from posting new messages (cool-down time) and a moderator (-s) is notified about the unusual behavior. So this should halt the spamming.

I've noticed only a few spammers are actually active at once. What if there will be a spam-bot attack and there will be more? Moderators will work here 24h/7d? I guess they're more like volunteers, not full-time workers, right?

 

[SolidSonicTH]

You know what's probably causing this spam is you have a crypto board. That probably put a target on this place's back...

 

[shaunj66]

Just a note to say we are aware of the increase in spam and we are still investigating our options.

 

[JuanMena]

Limiting newcomers to 1 thread and then setting a cool down won't fix the issues, simply because the spam is not being made by the same user.

What if @shaunj66 and @Costello makes a dummy forum that acts as a homepage or whichever forum gets spammed the most, so spambots posts there, and gets automatically deleted?

Kinda like, isolating them from "the real GBATEMP.net".

Post automatically merged: Apr 23, 2024

What about tracing the IP address from the spambots and blocking their entire country of origin from accessing the website?

Post automatically merged: Apr 23, 2024

Setting a captcha feature instead of a cool down?
Spambots should fail a captcha measure.

 

[hippy dave]

^ Captcha is a good idea for new posters. Mild annoyance but less controversial than banning whole countries.

PS: Dolphins don't even shave.

 

[Maximumbeans]

Spammers are annoying but its not a super urgent thing to deal with in the grand scheme of things. As long as people do not bump their obvious posts, quote them or screencap their telephone numbers and post them in a separate thread for the world to see its cool.

Oh wait....

'Not urgent' doesn't equate to not worth doing though, right? If we're going by the grand scheme then let's be honest, barely anything happening on this site at all is of any consequence.

 

[shaunj66]

^ Captcha is a good idea for new posters. Mild annoyance but less controversial than banning whole countries.

PS: Dolphins don't even shave.

Most spam is human generated. That's why we're getting so much, it's almost impossible to filter without effecting genuine users. I know it's an extreme comparison, but that's why X is getting so much spam these days and are going to resort to charging for first posts.

 

[The Catboy]

Most spam is human generated. That's why we're getting so much, it's almost impossible to filter without effecting genuine users. I know it's an extreme comparison, but that's why X is getting so much spam these days and are going to resort to charging for first posts.

To be fair, the Temp is run by actual competent people. I do trust whatever does come of this, it will be more than anything Twitter is doing.