That canoeing hour

I don't think we actually need anything more strenuous. I was mostly making a humorous observation that the canoes seem to pop up at almost exactly the same time every morning.

foxtrapper wrote: You guys are making this *way* more difficult for yourselves than it needs to be, all because you're insisting on reinventing the wheel. The problem with spammers is not new, and the sollutions are not new either.

I have to agree. No other site of the embarrassing number of message boards I frequent has the constant level of spam as this one. Which is really sad, because this one is my first stop of the day and my favorite.

one other route would be to just ignore the spammer's posts ... if no one EVER posted to the the spam then they quickly disappear

click on them ... see what they are ... move on ...

ddavidv wrote: I have to agree. No other site of the embarrassing number of message boards I frequent has the constant level of spam as this one. Which is really sad, because this one is my first stop of the day and my favorite.

As I've said before, the "off the shelf" board software has some really good anti-spam features. I really, really hope the coming redesign uses one of them.

I am a fan of the "limited board posting capabilities until it is obviously a person" method. Perhaps an "introduce yourself" thread in the off-topic section would be the only board newbies can post in.

"Newbie" expiration date to be determined by +1s and upvotes?. Always makes a newbie feel welcome when they get some +1s.

Or form a mod squad to blow those canoes out of the water.

wbjones wrote: one other route would be to just ignore the spammer's posts ... if no one EVER posted to the the spam then they quickly disappear click on them ... see what they are ... move on ...

That is a very valid point. The more times people comment, the more times the spam gets bumped to the top.

I'm not saying we need to stop fighting the spam, but the "canoe" comments only raise them back to the top of the pile.

I just want to say I much prefer the homebrew forum software GRM uses over vBulletin.

fritzsch wrote: I just want to say I much prefer the homebrew forum software GRM uses over vBulletin.

+1

What bass aackwards internet do you guys use? ADVRider and ExpoPortal both use VB to great effect. ADVRider manages 240,000 users...

There's no spam. The search actually brings useful results (who the hell doesn't put dates on the results?). Subscriptions work. Everything works.

The GRM site has literally the worst forum software I've ever used. Sorry Baxter, you were just one man.

David S. Wallens wrote:

wbjones wrote: one other route would be to just ignore the spammer's posts ... if no one EVER posted to the the spam then they quickly disappear click on them ... see what they are ... move on ...

That is a very valid point. The more times people comment, the more times the spam gets bumped to the top. I'm not saying we need to stop fighting the spam, but the "canoe" comments only raise them back to the top of the pile.

you need to delete the linkbacks, that is why they're spamming. They're not trying to get you to click the links, they're trying to raise the "credibility" of their site in search results by having a lot of sites linking to them. SEO 101

Form up a posse, say ten "!" reports from regular members or two from dorks and it moves the post or thread to a hidden topic area so no one can click on any links. If something of value gets accidentally moved one of the real mods can retrieve it. Anything not retrieved in a month goes under the patio.

David S. Wallens wrote: We have debated implementing some kind of approval process--we're still discussing it, to be honest. The issue we see is knowing who's real and who's not. How far does the interview process go? Do we ask for references? Ask to see photos of their cars? What if they're into cars but don't own anything cool? (That would probably eliminate some of our regulars.) What if they're not gifted writers? That would also eliminate some regulars. Weird name? Who's to decide what's a weird name or not? And in the end will that suck up even more of our time? So, short answer, we're working on. Our IT people have some suggestions, and we're discussing them. Believe me, it's frustrating us, too.

Too complicated.

Captcha, then done. Your site is being targeted BECAUSE it has no safety nets of ANY sort. Simply adding something stupid like "Please type the word "Shenanigans" in the box below. Copy and pasting is 100% acceptable" would cut the spam by over 80%.

If a real human can't figure it out, then they probably wouldn't be a useful part of the message board anyways.

I have no proof, but I suspect the spammer industry has tools and they configure those tools. If I was writing software like that, that's how I would do it. This URL, push the randomly generated user name into this box, email here, look for this question, add this answer, push this button. As I said in the other thread, captcha was useless.

Hey, another approach might be to randomly change the behind the HTTP names of the boxes/fields used on the registration page and slightly change the position of the fields on the page. Anything to mess up automation. If every time the page loaded it was slightly different, automation would have a hard time targeting that.

By the way, we are making some changes as we speak. I don't want to discuss exactly what in public, though.

Oh yeah, the search function...now that someone brought it up.

They're getting worse.

Osterkraut wrote: They're getting worse.

By far.

Sorry, guys. I had to go into work this morning, and then I went for a drive. After that, I logged in to delete canoes. My guess is that, with this being a busy weekend for GRM (remember the talk about being spread thin, with the staff working three events in different parts of the country) that nobody else was available to clean the mess up.

Sadly, there is no "kill the spammers" button that we can press.

I am now seeing it from the other side, too. I just signed up for a forum, and since I'm a newbie each post I make has to be approved by a moderator. Know what? Kinda sucks.

Back to this, yes, our IT people are working on some solutions. Hopefully we'll see those fruits of that labor very soon.

Thanks for understanding.