Stopping the spammers: My proposal

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

Is it possible to limit those with new accounts, say under 35 posts to posting one post per hour? This would stop people from signing up and immediately spamming every forum.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I don't like the idea. If you change it to: can only create one thread per hour, I might agree.

 

[Malak]

Yeah posting once every hour would make make a normal person never post here again. Hell I signed up for one forum that after activating the account, it told me I couldn't post until a moderator said it was ok. Nearly 24 hours later I was allowed to post. I made one post, never went back.

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I don't like the idea. If you change it to: can only create one thread per hour, I might agree.

Yeah, but then they'd just spam in existing threads.

How about once every 10 minutes? That would at least give the mods 10 minutes to identify and nuke one post, not a dozen

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: MikeyIs4Dcats

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I don't like the idea. If you change it to: can only create one thread per hour, I might agree.

Yeah, but then they'd just spam in existing threads.

How about once every 10 minutes? That would at least give the mods 10 minutes to identify and nuke one post, not a dozen

Sorry, I can't agree with that. It puts off legitimate newbies. If someone creates an account to get help with a problem, starts a thread, gets 15 replies in the first 20 minutes, they should be able to respond to more than 1 of them in that time.

Just my opinion.

 

[ProviaFan]

How about some sort of private queue for the Mods with a list of first threads posted by new members? I have heard that often each mod may only monitor one or two categories, so having some sort of centralized list would make it very easy to spot with a glance if there are ten "check out this cool site" posts by the same member in a ten minute period, where that same drastic behavior might not be noticed as quickly if a given mod were only watching one or two forums.

 

[SagaLore]

The way some other forums handle it, is that you have to have posted X many times before you can start a thread of your own. One forum in particular, I think offtopic.com, actually makes you post in a newbie category first so you can get approved.

If Anandtech made you participate in at least 10 threads before you could start a thread of your own, I think that would really help. Not just with fighting spammers, but also newbies who join just to be the center of attention.

 

[MrBond]

The way some other forums handle it, is that you have to have posted X many times before you can start a thread of your own.

You have to rememer that this is a computer hardware/software forum first and formost, there's a lot of one-post Junior Members who sign up here to ask hardware/software questions.

Any of these solutions are going to slow down the process of people getting help. I'd rather see the occasional spam thread than have people forced to wait to be able to post a thread asking why their new PC isn't booting up.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
The way some other forums handle it, is that you have to have posted X many times before you can start a thread of your own. One forum in particular, I think offtopic.com, actually makes you post in a newbie category first so you can get approved.

If Anandtech made you participate in at least 10 threads before you could start a thread of your own, I think that would really help. Not just with fighting spammers, but also newbies who join just to be the center of attention.

That may work for ATOT or P&N, but doesn't apply as well to say tech support.

 

[jjones]

Originally posted by: MrBond
I'd rather see the occasional spam thread than have people forced to wait to be able to post a thread asking why their new PC isn't booting up.

Agreed :thumbsup:

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: SagaLore
The way some other forums handle it, is that you have to have posted X many times before you can start a thread of your own. One forum in particular, I think offtopic.com, actually makes you post in a newbie category first so you can get approved.

If Anandtech made you participate in at least 10 threads before you could start a thread of your own, I think that would really help. Not just with fighting spammers, but also newbies who join just to be the center of attention.

That may work for ATOT or P&N, but doesn't apply as well to say tech support.

the reason i signed up on these forums was for tech support when i had a couple pc questions years ago

if i had to participate in 10 threads first,my replies would have sounded like this "yeah i know this isnt my thread, buy your god damn forums wont let me post yet, and i wanted to know how to fix blah blah on my pc"

spammers are just somethin we have to deal with

 

[SagaLore]

I agree, I'd rather not see any kind of moderation like that, I was just participating in the OP's original thought.