CybTekSol Posted July 20, 2010 Report Share Posted July 20, 2010 I have noticed an alarming trend among the 'new user' profiles of late in which a significant portion have commercial / advertising / spam URLs connected to the 'current signature' section of their profiles. POSTING using these types of URLs or hidden / masked URLs will GET YOU BANNED from this forum WITHOUT NOTICE and the offending post will either be removed (if irrelevant) or edited (if it contains anything that actually contributes to the forum). If this trend continues, more actions by the moderators may be necessary to keep the Ketarin forum focused on Ketarin. It would also be nice if other legitimate users would use the 'Report' link related to an offending post to help the moderators in this effort. Thanks for everyone's cooperation! I have started banning new users with frivolous posts to ANY thread if they have spam URLs in their profiles as of 8/8/10... Addendum: THIS THREAD is for the Admin and Moderators unless you have some input of MAJOR significance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
necrox Posted July 25, 2010 Report Share Posted July 25, 2010 There are a lot of new registrations - especially accounts with signatures like the one of the new member "tikoylim17". Just google for this name and have a look on his signatures. There are countless registrations with the same signature and ZERO posts. Just check all the new account profiles and google for their name. The same user names, the same profiles with links to the same suspect websites... http://ketarin.canneverbe.com/forum/userlist.php?username=&show_group=-1&sort_by=registered&sort_dir=DESC&search=Submit+user+criteria Just an example: compare the signatures of "donarker7", "endzurif1", "zulepedja" registered to our Ketarin discussion forum. Registration day for those accounts was 2010-07-11 and all three profiles with signature links to shops for golf equipment. As mentioned previously, this is just one of many examples. We should tighten measures for new registrations. How about another captcha system to prevent that kind of spam? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CybTekSol Posted July 25, 2010 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2010 This is exactly what I had noticed of late... VERY frustrating. I do believe some changes are in order but the final decision is up to Flo of course. Your thoughts Flo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
floele Posted July 25, 2010 Report Share Posted July 25, 2010 This forum does not support any stronger anti-spam measures. As long as the users don't post, let them be. You may of course delete them, but that's rather tedious work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
necrox Posted July 25, 2010 Report Share Posted July 25, 2010 How about rewriting/modifying the captcha system to make the recognition more difficult? I can give it a try... And here some facts about that kind of signature spam: http://punbb.informer.com/forums/post/135445/#p135445 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CybTekSol Posted July 25, 2010 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2010 You may of course delete them, but that's rather tedious work. Unfortunately... moderators do not have the option of deleting a user in the 'admin panel'... only to ban them, which means they still appear in the user list and still have their spam urls intact for google indexing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
necrox Posted July 27, 2010 Report Share Posted July 27, 2010 There is a registration mod for punbb. It is a human validation system. It should work with version 1.34 of punBB. http://www.network-technologies.org/Projects/Virtual_Brain_Online/article/spam_bot_registration_mod_punbb/ Alternatively changing the forum system to phpBB like the CDBurnerXP forum too. We can use a converter to move the structure and content to a new system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shawn Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 My vote is to make whatever changes are necessary to minimize or eliminate the spam. I know Ketarin isn't a revenue-generator for you *yet*, but the more users it has, the more likely it is to become so. Getting your support sites tied to "bad neighborhoods" in the search results is the best way to disappear from relevant search results, making it harder for those who *want* something like Ketarin to find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
necrox Posted August 8, 2010 Report Share Posted August 8, 2010 (edited) Almost the same user name and exactly the same signature. Hard to believe and obtrusive. http://ketarin.canneverbe.com/forum/profile.php?id=627 http://ketarin.canneverbe.com/forum/profile.php?id=624 http://ketarin.canneverbe.com/forum/profile.php?id=615 Searching the IP address returns this: http://www.stopforumspam.com/search.php?q=116.193.170.25 EDIT: And again a registration with the same signature: http://ketarin.canneverbe.com/forum/profile.php?id=628 Edited August 8, 2010 by necrox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CybTekSol Posted August 9, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2010 Just banned two more spammers... very frustrating as they are beginning to taunt us now with posts in this thread and other threads without adding anything of substance to the discussion. This has forced me to edit my post at the top of this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CybTekSol Posted September 7, 2010 Author Report Share Posted September 7, 2010 603 of 797 forum members with NO posts Flo, the majority of which have spam links AFAIK. Time for that 'broom script' you mentioned a few months ago... eeh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
floele Posted September 11, 2010 Report Share Posted September 11, 2010 Eventually, I've got my hands full currently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomorrow Posted November 8, 2010 Report Share Posted November 8, 2010 Lol considering the topic that talks about booting spambots just got a post by...a spambot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CybTekSol Posted February 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 4, 2011 Just banned some IP blocks Flo... a repeat offender that's a pain in the _ _ _! If it causes issues or if you are not in agreement with this, feel free to remove the ban. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomorrow Posted February 4, 2011 Report Share Posted February 4, 2011 If i see some spam i always use the report function Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CybTekSol Posted February 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2011 Yes... I have noticed your diligence Tomorrow... THANKS! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
necrox Posted February 9, 2011 Report Share Posted February 9, 2011 It is always the same. We should change the way registering a new account. There are 1622 registered users without one single topic/post. Most of them with spam links in their profile description... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomorrow Posted March 1, 2011 Report Share Posted March 1, 2011 Damn.Two bots.videodecul and alaslope.Several threads are being spammed.I can't even report so fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CybTekSol Posted March 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2011 All eliminated... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
necrox Posted March 19, 2011 Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 603 of 797 forum members with NO posts Flo, the majority of which have spam links AFAIK. Time for that 'broom script' you mentioned a few months ago... eeh? 854 of 2,102 with no post and in addition to them a lot of members with one post which have been banned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomorrow Posted March 19, 2011 Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 (edited) Yeah forum defenetly needs user cleanup.The longer the wait the more work it takes in the end.~6 months ago 797 users.Now over 2000 already.The registration proccess needs a much better CAPTCHA or possibly the whole forum needs as better software to run at. EDIT: for example avidemux forum seems to run the same software.They have over 4000 users but only ~1400 users with 1 or less posts.We have over 2000 users and i counted no less than over ~1900 users with 1 or less posts Edited March 19, 2011 by Tomorrow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
necrox Posted March 19, 2011 Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 As I described in post 5 + 7 there is an easy to install/use CAPTCHA script. PunBB antispam and website links & spam bot registration mod PunBB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CybTekSol Posted May 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 28, 2011 I don't want to be forward Flo... but can you devote some time to the spam issue soon? IMHO, a CAPTCHA script and eliminating the ability to add links to one's profile would be very helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
floele Posted May 28, 2011 Report Share Posted May 28, 2011 Well, we have captcha already, and removing the links does neither stop spam registrations nor spam posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omniferum Posted May 28, 2011 Report Share Posted May 28, 2011 I still believe the best solution is just for every new member's first post to be vetted by a moderator. Perhaps place an additional submission form after account creation? Something like "For your first post you must solve this captcha and wait for a moderator to approve your post/account". It would at least stop it from popping up on the forum so much, i'd be happy to moderate this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now