OK, Seriously. Movie Threads?

[Shalisk]

These are seriously annoying, is there somthing that can be done?

 

[grayceworks]

These are seriously annoying, is there somthing that can be done?

Just report them as spam when you see them. The mods get to them as soon as they can.

 

[lsg]

Yes, they are SPAM and we take care of them as soon as possible. Believe me, they annoy us as much as they annoy you.

 

[seven]

i dont understand why they bother to spam a soaping forum? lol
i mean, do they get many cliks from here? must be, coz they keep coming back? no?

 

[Shalisk]

Some sort of manual verification process might help, it did when I had a zombie forum, but thats extra work :/

 

[LunaSkye]

I hate to say it, but setting up a capcha (however you spell it) for making a thread may stop the threads from popping up. Unfortunately, then you would have to set it up for posting in general and that is even more annoying.

 

[Obsidian]

I'd rather see the spam threads then have to enter a captcha every time I post a thread. What about new registrations being approved before you can post? I'm on a number of forums like that and there are never spammer like on here.

 

[Ruthie]

I guess I'm weird, but they don't bother me that much. Maybe because I enjoy seeing how our mods deal with them so efficiently. Til then if the title looks suspect and there are no replies, I just skip over that one.

 

[Susie]

Please, no capcha to post! Half the time I can't make out the letters/numbers correctly, so it would take me forever to be able to post anything.

I am not really bothered by them, either. But, if we have to change something, I would rather get approved to join than have to verify I am human each post. On another forum, we have a questionnaire we send out when people ask to join. No completed questionnaire, no membership.

 

[Hazel]

Believe me. This spam is innocuous compared to some of the spam we used to get. I'd much rather see movie titles.

There used to be manual verification of new members by Austin but it was extremely time consuming. The email verification helps but doesn't stop them completely. We're also getting a lot less spam than previously and some of the spammers we catch before they even post. I don't mind the occasional spam because I love deleting and banning. :twisted: It's fun and it's our bonus for being idiotic to accept a mod position.

 

[grayceworks]

What about a captcha and/or "answer the question" thing on new user registration (not per post)? Although bots are getting better at the captchas, but they still can't figure out the question stuff (like "What is 2+2?" type thing). Preventing the bots from registering would reduce the spam, and it wouldn't require manual registration approval, so not any extra work, once the system is set up... And most forum software has various plugins that can be added quickly to accomplish that...

 

[AcornSky]

If you're going to put a question in for new registrations (which is currently the best way of weeding out the bots) you need to make it a visual question that is specific to this forum. Bots these days can do maths, and standard general knowledge questions are contained in a big nasty database that many of the bots subscribe to.

A good question here would be something like 'What colour is the background to this page?'

 

[grayceworks]

I've seen some question verifications that allow multiple correct answers, checking the person's input against a list, like it might ask: "What kind of body product do you want to learn to make?" and answers could be "soap" or "lotion" or "shampoo" or something.

Or do like this one, where it says the name of something, and you have to click the right picture that matches.

 

[leapinglizards]

The challenge with Captcha and others is that most of these php forums the bots don't use the interface at all. They post directly to the database. There are games online where similar bots post hidden secret posts that only other game players can get the links to. I have run a few forums and I was Horrified to discover how many back door posts were lurking on my server.

Alas, the only way to fix it, is to have a programmer make some security changes to the forum software and where things are stored, and it can really mess up a forum.