better spam detection.

PmCarbrey · Mar 16, 2018

Is there anything that can be done about the increasing amounts of spam posts that are getting through the filter? It's a tad ridiculous when there are two full pages of this under "Today's Posts"

hybridazn · Mar 16, 2018

We get them and remove them as quickly as we can. I know @revhtree turned up the spam filter so if someone posts a link in their first post it goes to a queue to get reviewed before posting.

Other than that of you see it before we do, report it. We will take it from there :)

Maacc · Mar 17, 2018

They're baaaack

Jeepguy242 · Mar 17, 2018

this could all be stopped if you would require 3 days after joining before a user can post.

Maacc · Mar 17, 2018

Everyone is doing the best they can, spam bots suck, but a 3 day posting ban might be intimidating to new people and especially disheartening to a new person with a tank crashing looking for help. It's a tight line between killing the bots and maintaining the friendly family atmosphere that makes R2R the place we all enjoy.

taxiem · Mar 17, 2018

Reported a few this morning. Its par for the course on such a huge forum really. The mods and admin teams do a great job of keeping it to a minimum :D x

ZaneTer · Mar 19, 2018

So much spam lately.............

saltyfilmfolks · Mar 19, 2018

Daniel@R2R · Mar 19, 2018

Trust me. We're as frustrated as you guys are by the increase in spam. We're working on it and have already tried several solutions. @revhtree is aware of the issue and trying to find ways to keep them out. I'm the meantime, the mod team is trying to clean them up ASAP.

chipmunkofdoom2 · Mar 19, 2018

IMO, a three-day ban on new members posting is not effective. It seems that most new members are joining because they have a problem or question. Preventing these members from posting for three days either causes them to not get the help they need, or they might even go somewhere else.

There's no great solution to IT and Internet security. Even the best captcha and verification schemes can be bypassed by a well-designed bot. If a human gets involved and does the account sign up, then passes the credentials to a bot, that's going to be almost impossible to prevent. Deep learning and machine learning are making things even more challenging for those trying to secure software systems. There have been a few acute spam problems here, but aside for these mostly-isolated incidents, R2R is remarkably spam free.

Breadman03 · Mar 19, 2018

mdbannister said:
Trust me. We're as frustrated as you guys are by the increase in spam. We're working on it and have already tried several solutions. @revhtree is aware of the issue and trying to find ways to keep them out. I'm the meantime, the mod team is trying to clean them up ASAP.

Can the forum be set so that as soon as something is reported as spam, the thread disappears until it can be moderated? Some users would still see it, but it might help things look cleaner in general.

DSC reef · Mar 19, 2018

mdbannister said:
Trust me. We're as frustrated as you guys are by the increase in spam. We're working on it and have already tried several solutions. @revhtree is aware of the issue and trying to find ways to keep them out. I'm the meantime, the mod team is trying to clean them up ASAP.

You guys are doing a great job at eliminating them quickly.

Lasse · Mar 19, 2018

These spam make their ways when you are sleeping in the US. I often see them around 7 - 8 o´clock local time when I normally logg in. When it will be some hours before some mods awake and take them away. One or two mods from Europe or Asia could help in order to get them away quickly. Because I often use links - some of my post has been put in waiting mod. But - if it possible to fix - as mentioned in post 11 - an automatic block after a report could be a good idea

Sincerely Lasse

hybridazn · Mar 19, 2018

Lasse said:
These spam make their ways when you are sleeping in the US. I often see them around 7 - 8 o´clock local time when I normally logg in. When it will be some hours before some mods awake and take them away. One or two mods from Europe or Asia could help in order to get them away quickly. Because I often use links - some of my post has been put in waiting mod. But - if it possible to fix - as mentioned in post 11 - an automatic block after a report could be a good idea

Sincerely Lasse

If we did that then every post that is reported will do that and will cause major issues throughout the forum

Daniel@R2R · Mar 19, 2018

The difficulty with giving every member the ability to move a thread to moderation with a "spam" button (IF that's a possible option) is that while it would be effective at eliminating spam quicker, it would also potentially give trolls the ability to lock up perfectly useful and beneficial discussions until we could get them cleared...we don't have many trolls, giving ANY trolls this option would be like opening a playground for them (at least as far as I can tell). Maybe an in between option is possible, but that's something beyond my knowledge of the software. I do know that an upgrade will be happening soon on the software, and hopefully that will help a great deal.

Krzydmnd · Mar 19, 2018

What is the point of these spams anyway? What is the spammer accomplishing when it's all gibberish?

Lasse · Mar 19, 2018

Can´t you give members of the reefsquad the ability to move spam to a moderation forum?

Sincerely Lasse

Water Dog · Mar 20, 2018

Spammers are out in full force this morning... ugh. Attacking in multiple forums. For these particular spammers, is there away to filter out and identify them as spammers when they use “Asian” characters in the body of the thread or in the titles?

*please no one take offense to my suggestion. I happen to be an American of Asian descent. :D

Otrips · Mar 23, 2018

The overnight spam is pretty ridiculous. Any way you could add some of these Chinese characters to a spam filter or limit new member posts to a max of one every 10-15min or so? Keep up the good work getting rid of it, I know it's not an easy task.

Mike Reef Addict · Mar 23, 2018

hybridazn said:
We get them and remove them as quickly as we can. I know @revhtree turned up the spam filter so if someone posts a link in their first post it goes to a queue to get reviewed before posting.

Other than that of you see it before we do, report it. We will take it from there :)

Thanks for the heads up I personally haven't seen any spam posts but if I do I'll report them. I admin a few Mushroom ID forums on Facebook an it can take up some valuable time that's for sure.