Spam on ASR

[Keith_W]

Lately I have noticed a lot of Chinese spam on ASR.

As a former admin on another forum, when we encountered this problem, these were the options we considered and the results:

- prevent all users from certain countries from registering (e.g. *.ru, *.cn). This worked for us because we were an Australian forum, but it probably won't work for ASR. Also easily circumvented by registering from other countries, but spammers usually don't go through that trouble.
- requiring all new registrations to make an introductory post in the "New members" subforum before manually granting full membership (this worked very well, spammers aren't patient enough to craft a convincing introductory post. The downside is moderator/admin workload)
- introducing a new class of membership called "probationary". All probationary members are unable to start a thread until they hit a post count of 10 (somewhat worked, but doesn't stop spammers from spamming existing threads, the downside is that it stops new members from starting threads to ask questions)

I am not sure if modern forum software has the ability to stop probationary members from creating >1 thread, or if 5 threads are created in a short space of time, all threads are automatically hidden + marked for review and the member automatically suspended.

 

[JSmith]

spam

Yeah very annoying, it's been discussed in the past in this thread though;

What's with all the spam threads?

If threads cannot be created without membership (assumed), then the membership admission process warrants closer scrutiny/tighter buttoning down. Just my $0.02. +1

audiosciencereview.com

JSmith

 

[Beave]

The guy is relentless. He has been doing this for over a year. Sometimes he gets the posts through, but often his account is killed before he gets the posts up.

The thing that's funny to me is that it's such a wasted effort. Nobody on this forum gives a rat's ass about his links for fake diplomas. He's totally wasting his time - and the time of the moderators - for no benefit whatsoever.

I've seen the exact same spam on other forums too, going back several years. And just like here, the people on those forums would have no interest at all in the spam.

A total waste of human capacity.

 

[sam_adams]

The admins are doing the best they can to deal with these two idiots. Just report and move on. The more reports the faster the takedown.

 

[amirm]

He was gone for a while but has come back. I am usually quicker in catching him but was busy researching something and didn't see it until a few minutes ago.

He is taking advantage of a simple hole in the system design that lets him bypass the spam filters. I need to get our platform provider to plug that.

 

[Keith_W]

Apologies, I did not see that other thread. Sorry Amir, please feel free to merge.

 

[amirm]

I am not sure if modern forum software has the ability to stop probationary members from creating >1 thread, or if 5 threads are created in a short space of time, all threads are automatically hidden + marked for review and the member automatically suspended.

We have a forced delay to slow this guy down until I catch him. It also creates a lot of effort for him. I think it is for this reason that he eventually gives up and stays away for a few months.