The Ref Stop

spam posts...

E

es1

RefChat Addict
not a massive issue as they're easily deleted, but i presume the 'members' posting spam are doing so with their first post. is there any way of preventing new members posting new threads until they have reached a minimum number of posts?

appreciate some new members may be joining to ask a specific question and this would prevent that happening immediately but it doesn't have to be many, maybe 5 or less?
 
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The Ref Stop
The forum has very good anti-spam technology and it is very rare their registration gets approved. Of course a few sneak through, but unless it becomes a lot more severe I'm not sure we should be banning people from posting a new topic when they may have a very genuine reason to do so.
 
Last week was especially bad, often though they are the same person with multiple user IDs and using multiple VPN locations to avoid getting blocked by the spam rules.
 
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Unfortunately once they break through the captcha it becomes common knowledge about how to do it. I’m working in the background to try and resolve it. Bare with me
 
I know you have accessibility criteria on the classified section, perhaps it would be worth expanding this across the forum to try and combat the spam bots? Agree with the original post in this thread, limiting "start new thread" privileges to the "Introductions" and "New Referee" sub-forums until they have posted at least a few times might stop the accounts who join up just for the spam post?
 
GraemeS said:
I know you have accessibility criteria on the classified section, perhaps it would be worth expanding this across the forum to try and combat the spam bots? Agree with the original post in this thread, limiting "start new thread" privileges to the "Introductions" and "New Referee" sub-forums until they have posted at least a few times might stop the accounts who join up just for the spam post?
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That's a good idea in principle.
My argument against it would be how I stumbled upon this site back in the day. I needed immediate help and support on an issue that had occurred in a game. Help I might not have been able to access had I had to do an intro and contribute elsewhere first.

The spam posts definitely need some controlling, your idea is not without merit but also feel it might restrict genuine posters who need help now.
 
Agree completely, although I was thinking being able to post in "New Referee" should allow for that to some extent? There's currently a spam post in the Announcements forum though, and there's no good reason for a new member (arguably, for any non-moderator) to be able to start new threads in there though.
 
JamesL said:
The spam posts definitely need some controlling,
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I know this isn’t a complaint.

However for every one you guys report I’m catching and cleaning 4 or 5 before they get reported. Typically they seem to be hitting in the small hours.
 
Tealeaf said:
I know this isn’t a complaint.

However for every one you guys report I’m catching and cleaning 4 or 5 before they get reported. Typically they seem to be hitting in the small hours.
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Sorry, I'm not complaining. Appreciate the job you guys do.
Think this thread is aimed at helping and suggesting ideas... Even if they've been thought of already ❤️
 
So annoyingly the spammers are human and not bots. I’ve changed the Q&A captcha to very specific refereeing related questions, and they are still getting through. I’ll have a play around d with permissions and force all new users 1st posts into moderation first
 
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