Dear Admin,

The spam is getting kind of ridiculous. Our mods are amazing and do their best to get rid of it right then and there before anyone notices, but they're not online and refreshing pages 24/7.

Could we have some sort of updated spam filter to make their jobs a bit easier and to scar our eyes a bit less? I have never been on another forum with so much spam. The technology is out there, it just needs to be found and applied.




With love, as always,

Saurus

Thank you, Saurus.

I've banned at least 6 in the last 15 minutes.

I agree!

SIX!?!?!?

Good god.

I know we've had this discussion before, again, and again and over again times a thousand, but it's getting ridiculous which is why I brought it up. I'm on a few other forums with double or several times the traffic as chaz, and they just don't have this problem at all, so it's obviously not the traffic that's the issue here - it's the spam filter that needs some serious tweaking.

Maybe everyone who wants to join should have to create an introduction thread before posting anywhere else, and then, pending approval, be allowed to post on the rest of the forum or make replies to anything but their own thread. It allows real members to make one immediate post if they need help and respond to the replies, but it would make it somewhat easier for mods to ban and delete spammers because they wouldn't have twenty different threads strewn about.

It would make it a bit easier for members to ignore, as well - just use extra caution in the intro section.

It's not a permanent fix, but would be a good measure until we get filters that actually work.

We do spend a lot of time with "preemptive" strikes against known spambots. Often more than 30 a day. You should see some of the stuff that never makes it to the board or is killed as soon as it's posted.

I like this idea. I'm a mod on another forum (though it's much smaller than Chaz) and we require each member have 5 posts that are moderated before they can post freely.

We also have spam filters that make it so members that get caught in the filter need to be manually approved. Granted we get maybe 2 or 3 members a week that get caught in the filter, sometimes less.

Personally I can't stand forums that make you make an introduction post when you join. I pretty much right then and there decide not to join them. I like looking around a forum and lurking for awhile before having to post and that's a lot easier when you can do searches and things.

I also don't bother with forums that posts need to be moderated before showing up when you first join, especially in a faster moving forum.

Maybe it's just me, very real possibility

But yeah, I have no helpful ideas and I know I'm not adding anything constructive, just complaining about ideas given.

Hope something can be figured out though, I feel bad for our mods!

On my forum I have a very simple Q&A captcha and it gets tons of bot hits, but not one is able to get registered.

I know I don't bother with a forum that requires every post to be moderated. I think if you can join and do searches and whatnot, but you have to make an approved intro post before posting anywhere else, that would probably be fine. So long as our lovely mods could manage to take care of that in a timely manner so that those in need don't have to wait too long before getting help with whatever problems brought them to us.

ETA: I like CP's idea better.

If a CAPTCHA is used, it needs to be something like reCAPTCHA (or something accessible) so that it's accessible for all. Plain old CAPTCHA generally doesn't let people with print disabilities (including blindness) have access.

A Q&A captcha is just as accessible as the rest of the registration form. If they can fill out a name and password and email, they can fill out the answer to the question too.

Yeah, what CP means is something like "if blue is one and red is two, what is red plus blue" and the person has to type in "three." I've also seen ones in terms of just putting a box and requiring the user to type a number in the box, like "type 14 in this box." They are, currently, quite effective at stopping bots.

I was surfing chaz waiting for class to start last week. I see the new spam.. I click so I can report the spam.. The spam is graphic porn with lots of penises everywhere... It was minutes before class started I was pretty sure like everyone saw me looking at porn..

Oh yes. I did just ban Hot Teacher.

You're totally right, and I hate it, too, but it's the best idea I can come up with and I was trying to be constructive. Last time we debated this the problem was "what if someone has an emergency and they can't post" and I saw this as a solution to that.

If anyone has any better ideas to stop this crap until we get a spam filter, please post them up.

There should be spam filters available. I imagine it's a matter of getting the right ones set up and adding new ones as the spammers and bots find ways around them.

Speaking of graphic porn.. a newbie just made 11 new threads to showcase some. Lord.

Speaking of porn...

Maybe its just time to bring in some new admins?

Foxy and a few others have left.. and there are plenty of active members who are active around different times of the day

Man.... That's some nasty stuff.... Clicked on one to report... YIKES! Poor Mods!

Yeah, I'm definitely NOT opening any of those threads to report them. Hopefully a mod will catch them soon.