A quick comment on spam

[Oky]

The recent flood of spam is indeed getting frustrating. It's not fun to wake up to dozens of notifications for spam topics every day. I'm sure the mods are doing their best to keep it under control, but unless somebody finds a more permanent solution, I fear I may have to turn off notifications from EB to avoid having to constantly clear my inbox of spam.

Implementing a filter that blocks topics with a link or Asian characters in the title from being posted seems like the most obvious solution and has been suggested many times, but no admin has so far commented on whether this is possible or not (correct me if I'm wrong). Any response to this question or any update on where we are at in the War on the Bots would be greatly appreciated.

Either way, thanks for all your work, mods & admins!

[Robert8]

6 hours ago, Oky said:

Implementing a filter that blocks topics with a link or Asian characters in the title from being posted seems like the most obvious solution and has been suggested many times, but no admin has so far commented on whether this is possible or not (correct me if I'm wrong). Any response to this question or any update on where we are at in the War on the Bots would be greatly appreciated.

That's a great idea

 

[Pdaitabird]

It's time we fight back: we should flood Korean dating websites with pictures of MOCs!

[Bob De Quatre]

We don't have any satisfying solutions for the moment... We'll let you know when we have a good solution to this problem (but you'll most likely know immediately when a solution is found!).

 

3 hours ago, Pdaitabird said:

It's time we fight back: we should flood Korean dating websites with pictures of MOCs!

Now that's a good idea!! 

[Digger of Bricks]

On 9/9/2018 at 11:04 PM, Pdaitabird said:

It's time we fight back: we should flood Korean dating websites with pictures of MOCs!

I second this!  

[one79]

On 9/10/2018 at 2:58 AM, Oky said:

The recent flood of spam is indeed getting frustrating. It's not fun to wake up to dozens of notifications for spam topics every day. I'm sure the mods are doing their best to keep it under control, but unless somebody finds a more permanent solution, I fear I may have to turn off notifications from EB to avoid having to constantly clear my inbox of spam.

Implementing a filter that blocks topics with a link or Asian characters in the title from being posted seems like the most obvious solution and has been suggested many times, but no admin has so far commented on whether this is possible or not (correct me if I'm wrong). Any response to this question or any update on where we are at in the War on the Bots would be greatly appreciated.

Either way, thanks for all your work, mods & admins!

Well, the Return of the Korean Spams. They are taking over the forum now!!

 

On 9/10/2018 at 11:04 AM, Pdaitabird said:

It's time we fight back: we should flood Korean dating websites with pictures of MOCs!

 

On 9/10/2018 at 2:59 PM, Bob De Quatre said:

We don't have any satisfying solutions for the moment... We'll let you know when we have a good solution to this problem (but you'll most likely know immediately when a solution is found!).

 

Now that's a good idea!! 

 

On 9/11/2018 at 6:18 PM, Digger of Bricks said:

I second this!  

lol!!

[Jim]

I am currently working on spam prevention. We have setup manual account approval. This is far from ideal, but if that is what it takes. This means that we will ask some questions upon registration. Unfortunately, this means that existing members need to add this information as well. We are not sure that this will be the final solution, but we need to do SOMETHING. And the board software we are using only gives us a certain set of options. 

[AllanSmith]

Have just filled in the extra info. Very happy to do that if it stops the spam. Well done 

[Jim]

6 minutes ago, AllanSmith said:

Have just filled in the extra info. Very happy to do that if it stops the spam. Well done 

Thanks!

We hope to scare off spammers this way. Not sure if it works, but doing nothing won't help either.

[Saberwing40k]

It's using a sledgehammer for surgery, but it's something. I hope the publisher of the board software we use takes notice, as their users might jump ship if they can't keep spam out of the forums. Until then, there has to be some actual solution, that isn't fully manual. I just hope our beloved Eurobricks can weather this storm.

[Robert8]

13 minutes ago, AllanSmith said:

Have just filled in the extra info. Very happy to do that if it stops the spam. Well done 

Same

Already did it as well 

[Jim]

17 minutes ago, Saberwing40k said:

It's using a sledgehammer for surgery, but it's something. I hope the publisher of the board software we use takes notice, as their users might jump ship if they can't keep spam out of the forums. Until then, there has to be some actual solution, that isn't fully manual. I just hope our beloved Eurobricks can weather this storm.

We have been looking into a way to prevent new users from creating topics. But the board doesn't seem to have this functionality. We will contact them though, to find out. This might lead to spam posts instead of spam topics though.

17 minutes ago, Saberwing40k said:

It's using a sledgehammer for surgery, but it's something. 

I wouldn't call Spam attacks a delicate matter like surgery btw. It's more like tower defense  

[JopieK]

Maybe adding some puzzles for new members would help. E.g. what is the LEGO capitol of the world. I assume all those people from Pakistan and probably also a lot of Koreans that do not have any clue about LEGO, just about spamming wouldn't know the answer and all people joining an AFOL forum would.

@Saberwing40k, there are so many spammers every day that surgery would be totally ineffective.

[Jim]

3 minutes ago, JopieK said:

Maybe adding some puzzles for new members would help. E.g. what is the LEGO capitol of the world. I assume all those people from Pakistan and probably also a lot of Koreans that do not have any clue about LEGO, just about spamming wouldn't know the answer and all people joining an AFOL forum would.

We already had some questions, but once they know the answers, we're lost again. It won't take long to find out that the answer is Billund.

The current setup seems to working out nicely, but we do need to go through the list several times a week.

[Holodoc]

We still do some kind of surgery every day by banning the members manually.
This was no option for the future though, so we decided to try something else.

[Jim]

It's time we make our own Eurobricks website 

Something I have been thinking about a lot lately. We would have full control over every aspect.

[Holodoc]

Just now, Jim said:

It won't take long to find out that the answer is Billund.

Damn! He blew it!

[Jim]

1 minute ago, Holodoc said:

We still do some kind of surgery every day by banning the members manually.
This was no option for the future though, so we decided to try something else.

Exactly. And 80% of new registrations is spam, so it's either banning the 80% or approving the 20%.

1 minute ago, Holodoc said:

Damn! He blew it!

Ooops 

[JopieK]

Well I would agree that they would find out eventually, but if they would need a list to figure out the answers (as one could potentially make e.g. 20 of such a questions) then it would at least slow them down. I don't know of course but considering the content of most of the spam they might not be very affluent in English. But on the other hand I totally agree that approving would be the best option.

[Jim]

16 minutes ago, JopieK said:

Well I would agree that they would find out eventually, but if they would need a list to figure out the answers (as one could potentially make e.g. 20 of such a questions) then it would at least slow them down. I don't know of course but considering the content of most of the spam they might not be very affluent in English. But on the other hand I totally agree that approving would be the best option.

Absolutely agree. We do have four questions at the moment, but we can add several more.

Today we already had around 50 spam accounts today and after we switched to manual account approval with the personal question........zero spam and a lot less registrations. It definitely is helping, but it comes at a (time consuming) price.

[Hod Carrier]

I completely support the actions of the admins in helping to reduce spam on the forum. Personally I wasn’t aware the problem was so big as I only see the occasional spam thread popping up, and they’re usually easy enough to spot.

I imagine that it would help if individual members were vigilant too. I always report any spam that I find by clicking on the flag within the thread and it usually gets deleted quickly. I would encourage other members to do the same. The mods and admins can’t be expected to check every single post and it helps them if we can identify contentious content and mark it for their attention.

[Jim]

We do get a lot of support from the community. People are definitely creating reports. And we have members who can ban spammers. But the main issue is that it is a constant stream of spam.

[doug72]

The UK lottery when you log onto your online account, uses a photo divided up into a 6 x 4 grid and you have click the  squares containing parts of a car, road signs or other random image.

Doug

Edited September 15, 2018 by Doug72

[Hod Carrier]

@Jim I fear that may just be an inescapable consequence of being online. The story of King Cnut and the tide comes to mind. 

Edited September 15, 2018 by Hod Carrier

[Koori]

Unfortunately it comes with being a forum online.

I had experience with these types years ago on another site.

The extra information is fine, if it keeps spammers out.