Spambots.........

Catt Heckathorne

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So I am starting to notice that we have had a huge influx of spambots lately and am getting a little tired of constantly seeing spambot posts everywhere.

Is there something we can do to remedy this?
 

Elania al'Manir

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If you're talking about this past weekend and the days around it specifically, a lot of the people who normally delete the spam ASAP have been busy with JordanCon. It should return to normal soon.

We're also aware of extra spam over a longer period of time, and have brainstormed solutions. One of those is that the Director of Mods and Ops reviews email addresses used to sign up for the spammy accounts and periodically bans domains that seem to have no other value. The mod team has talked about other solutions as well, but I don't remember them off the top of my head, and the conversation seems to be buried somewhere in a thread. :laugh:
 

Alora Sionn

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One thing I was wondering, is the secret word thing (who wrote the wheel of time) is supposed to stop the automated account creation that bots tend to use, so if they are still getting in and in large numbers doesn't this mean that they have this code word saved or something? Would changing it up every year or so help?
 

Thaddius al'Guy

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I was once part of a forum that had a rule that no free domains (hotmail, gmail, etc.) could sign up, you had to have something, like a work or school email, or your own domain email. It's way more restrictive, but it greatly controlled the spam problems they had. I'm pretty sure that it would not work in this situation. Perhaps there could be another two step authentication that the account has to be approved before you can post, though this would require someone to look through the requests to approve them. This could be solved with when signing up for an account (I'm not sure if this is done already, it's been years since I signed up) but have them answer a coherent question that a bot probably couldn't fill in.

I'd be willing to cull obviously fake accounts as I see it a lot with the work I do, so if that direction is ever taken, you have a volunteer.
 

Alyria Ess

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I take great pleasure in reporting spam posts, but I was out this week :cheeseeni:

Also it really bums me out that they choose actually cool WOT-themed names.
 

Elania al'Manir

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I think we did look into having a review process before someone's allowed to post, and could go over it again. We would have to make sure that enough Admins or Directors have access to do that, though, so that we don't leave actual new members hanging for too long. Also, as Alyria has brought up, they're being smart with their names lately. It's not always obvious that they're a spammer until after they've posted.
 

Ariadne Davion

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Part of it is I'm in the process of moving and not clearing out the 5-10 bots that register daily. I wish I could say the amount is abnormal, but it isnt.
 

Rhed al'Tere

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Also! If folks can post in a thread they’ve reported, that can help others know that they don’t need to report. The Mod Squad is getting overwhelmed by reporting threads.
 

Ephrem Elpidius

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I take great pleasure in reporting spam posts, but I was out this week :cheeseeni:

Also it really bums me out that they choose actually cool WOT-themed names.


The existential question is this. Do all of you seriously want to take this great joy away from Alyria by fixing the said problem? What monsters! I want nothing to do with any of you, Joy Destroyers!!!

:rofl

In all seriousness though, how many actual new people sign up per year? Probably could make it a bit tougher, like email asking random questions about wheel of time, their interest in it, etc. To gauge English levels, etc. Most bots probably just do copy/paste spam and won't even reply to emails like that.
 

Stasia t'Andrei

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Also! If folks can post in a thread they’ve reported, that can help others know that they don’t need to report. The Mod Squad is getting overwhelmed by reporting threads.
Thank you, as someone who has been reporting those threads I was actually wondering about that.
 

Nymala Ingasy

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I walked in the door from JCon about 15 minutes ago. My apologies for the spam bots. They will be removed promptly.
 

Catt Heckathorne

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That sounds like a great idea, Rhed. I was wondering the same thing as Stasia. Maybe that needs to be a pinned announcement somewhere.
 
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Aran Cherubim

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Also! If folks can post in a thread they’ve reported, that can help others know that they don’t need to report. The Mod Squad is getting overwhelmed by reporting threads.

I just reported a thread that was posted a couple of minutes ago. I avoided posting in it since it's generally been frowned upon on other sites I've been on - but this is a good advice to lessen the mods' burden.
 

Nymala Ingasy

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Thank you, Mendo. :)
 

Polegnyn Nemeara

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So... does one's post count go down if they report a spambot thread, post it has been reported, and then the thread deleted? Asking for a friend... :look:
 
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