Spam Reduction Suggestion

[ke6guj]

Honestly I'd like to see a 50 post minimum for marketplace activity.

If you just want to go online and sell a gun, use Armslist or Gunbroker.
Calguns is a community and the marketplace SHOULD be about supporting it.

I've been a member on forums like that, you just get 50 crappy posts so that they can unlock the marketplace.

I may have done the same thing myself to get access, making worthless posts that are more than just "cool", "nice", etc. it sucked.

Won't work; they'll just post that many more useless posts to get to 5 or 10.

yup

What WOULD work is that they can't post anything until they have a verified code sent to their email address; which they must use to complete the sign up here at Calguns before they can post.

You then make that verification email delayed by at least an hour or more. By then, the spammers will have lost interest, moved on to another website, or so busy spamming they won't see the verification email come in to coincide it with whatever fake name and password they originated in the first place; they just aren't that strategic.

Not even sure many speak English as a first language. They seem to just be cutting-and-pasting their hocks.

nice.

MANDATORY, intro post for all new people. Direction can be sent in their welcome email. Membership must not reply to a post without an intro. post. If they post without it, direct them to the place for introductions. Second failure to follow rules results in being banned.

Mods/admins will not catch all of the crazy. Police ourselves.

i hate required intro posts. I skip many forums that require them.

[Desertdoc]

You have agreed and disagreed.

If people cannot simply say hi I like guns, then let them depart.

Do you have a plan?

[ElDub1950]

Seems like most spammers and 1 post hit and runs. No links or pics in first post would be fine and shouldn't discourage noobs.

[Garv]

Thanks for popping in Ke6guj.

[johnthomas]

^^^Reported as spammer...

LOL, that's me, spam and eggs, slt, like a BLT only with spam, spam and tatters, I'm a spammer.

[rkt88edmo]

I like the approved first post idea. There aren't too too many of those to handle, and if the screen shows posts well you can batch process them pretty easily. That and and something that scans out the tracker gifs/images.

Requiring X posts and welcome posts isn't needed. When we had a post count requirement for FS, all it did was generate a bunch of zero value posts and unlike OT there was 0 potential for humor value.

[user120312]

What I've noticed is the bots have nonsense usernames so it's pretty easy to plow through the registration lists during the day to grab them, even if they haven't posted, which is also a tactic. Bots will register and go to sleep, then activate hours, days, or weeks later. IMO, more robust registration protocols could help with the bots.

Our forum doesn't allow IMG UBB so we don't have any problems with trackers but the front-end registration image matching is antiquated so easy for the bots to get through.

Interesting observation is that nearly half, a bit over 105,550, of the ~219,000 non-banned members on the CG forum have never posted.

Based on what I've seen over the last couple decades, a more robust front end registration process, keeping the spam database subscriptions up and continually updating the software to the latest spam tools would help a lot. What I've noticed is the forums that are run by the big internet forum corporations rarely get spam attacks that are visible to users and a new member can register and post immediately. They have other tools.

[MountainHardwear]

That is very interesting. Do they even log in on occasion?

Interesting observation is that nearly half, a bit over 105,550, of the ~219,000 non-banned members on the CG forum have never posted.

[user120312]

I could run the database calc on our forum but that's an administrator function so not really possible here except by the folks who run the forum. Since CG has a number of forums which are opaque to users not registered and logged in, people will register to read those forums, or in general, which is what I did back in 2012. Also, there's likely a lot of sockpuppet and reincarnation registrations which are not related to spam.

When checking out the differences, I noted the 'newest' member at the time I checked, agwsrgfew. Dollars to donuts that's going to be a spammer.

The forum front page shows a bit over 29,000 'active' members, using whatever metric the admins choose for that parameter. Bots and spammers who don't get caught likely get into that group until they do get caught, then drop off and populate the difference between registered members and total members.

[-hanko]

What I've noticed is the bots have nonsense usernames so it's pretty easy to plow through the registration lists during the day to grab them, even if they haven't posted, which is also a tactic. Bots will register and go to sleep, then activate hours, days, or weeks later. IMO, more robust registration protocols could help with the bots.

Our forum doesn't allow IMG UBB so we don't have any problems with trackers but the front-end registration image matching is antiquated so easy for the bots to get through.

Interesting observation is that nearly half, a bit over 105,550, of the ~219,000 non-banned members on the CG forum have never posted.

Based on what I've seen over the last couple decades, a more robust front end registration process, keeping the spam database subscriptions up and continually updating the software to the latest spam tools would help a lot. What I've noticed is the forums that are run by the big internet forum corporations rarely get spam attacks that are visible to users and a new member can register and post immediately. They have other tools.

That's that saying about Geo Vario...competent or clowns??