Spam filter

[NTMBK]

Has the spam filter been relaxed recently? It doesn't seem to be doing its job properly any more. I've seen a LOT of spam posts/threads over the last week or so.

 

[postmortemIA]

spam filter? this is not your email provider. Everybody can register for free forum account and make few posts before is banned. And these spam posts look like they came from a person, not a bot.

Only option I see is 24-hour or so delay between registration and first post (which might already be in place)

 

[ViRGE]

Actually postmortem, we do have a spam filter. Filtered posts are put in an approval queue and can only be seen by mods until we approve them. However this latest batch of spam is doing a pretty good job of getting around our filters.:|

 

[postmortemIA]

Actually postmortem, we do have a spam filter. Filtered posts are put in an approval queue and can only be seen by mods until we approve them. However this latest batch of spam is doing a pretty good job of getting around our filters.:|

my bad
if user has <10 posts and post contains link then block it
sounds so simple, must be some 'but' catch

 

[ViRGE]

my bad
if user has <10 posts and post contains link then block it
sounds so simple, must be some 'but' catch

Actually our spam filter operates a lot like that. For users with less than 10 posts any URLs they post are checked against a list of known spammy URLs. The problem is that the latest spammers are using new URLs every time, and we're not about to forbid newbies from posting URLs - it's called the World Wide Web for a reason.

 

[DrPizza]

It's pretty simple: click the little triangle to report the post and sooner or later (usually sooner) a moderator or admin will bring down the ban hammer, remove the post, possibly add the site to the censor list, and report the site, username, and IP address to stopforumspam.

 

[NTMBK]

It's pretty simple: click the little triangle to report the post and sooner or later (usually sooner) a moderator or admin will bring down the ban hammer, remove the post, possibly add the site to the censor list, and report the site, username, and IP address to stopforumspam.

I'm hitting report every time I see one, don't worry. It's just the fact that they seem to have suddenly started breaching your defences is a little troubling.

 

[EagleKeeper]

I'm hitting report every time I see one, don't worry. It's just the fact that they seem to have suddenly started breaching your defences is a little troubling.

It takes a human to detect a breach.

 

[allisolm]

The live spammers just get more sneaky over time. This morning there was one who made a post containing nothing but spam links. The filter caught it. He then made another post with 2 words in it, waited a few minutes, went back and added the same spam links. That one wasn't caught by the filter and had to be hand removed.