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Regarding spam bots

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 11:31 am
by Carlos
We are aware of the surge of spam bots joining and spamming the site. We are doing what we can to get rid of them and their bullshit in a timely manner. With that said, I have some small requests:

* DON'T FEED THE TROLLS! If you see a spam post, don't reply to it with a negative comment. If you think it's a new bot we're not aware of, let us know. Yes, we all hate spammers and want to gouge out their eyes with a corkscrew, but only adds fuel to the fire, and the thread will end up being deleted anyway, so you're just wasting your time.

* If you're a real person and your posts are nothing but spam, irrelevant to video games, or you only post to advertise your new truckload of 7800 E.T. cartridges, you will be banned! End of story! If you run a gaming site, great, tell us all about it. We just don't need six threads about it.

Thank you for your cooperation,
Your friendly neighborhood moderator

Re: Regarding spam bots

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 1:23 pm
by Darryl B.
Carlos wrote: * DON'T FEED THE TROLLS! If you see a spam post, don't reply to it with a negative comment.
I'm locking the ones that I can (only a partial moderator) and renaming the threads as "spam". So if anyone sees that in a heading, then don't bother even looking at it, unless you just have nothing better to do.
Carlos wrote: * If you're a real person and your posts are nothing but spam, irrelevant to video games, or you only post to advertise your new truckload of 7800 E.T. cartridges,
Snirk...that's funny! Especially if you purposely meant 7800 instead of 2600! :D

Re: Regarding spam bots

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 5:57 pm
by megasdkirby
:)

I admit...I fed the trolls. I just get very angry when I see stupid bots or people advertise their spam...makes me cringe so bad. :(

But duty noted, I will now report all spam accordingly and quickly!

But is there any way to ban their incomming IPs as well?

Re: Regarding spam bots

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 6:29 pm
by Darryl B.
megasdkirby wrote::)

I admit...I fed the trolls. I just get very angry when I see stupid bots or people advertise their spam...makes me cringe so bad. :(
I've done that before myself, can't blame ya ;) Just not really worth wasting time with typing though...but my excuse has been I type like over 80 wpm, so it's no big deal to me...
megasdkirby wrote::)
But is there any way to ban their incomming IPs as well?
Only Ter can, I think.

Re: Regarding spam bots

Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 6:51 pm
by megasdkirby
Good point, Daryl. The spammers never respond back so it's useless.

I think it's possible to ban their originating IP...I think Ter can trace the IP from each post and ban them, something like this:

192.168.*.*

Where * is a wildcard. So any address with the first two parts will not enter or even be able to become a member.

Re: Regarding spam bots

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:09 am
by Zap!
megasdkirby wrote:Good point, Daryl. The spammers never respond back so it's useless.

I think it's possible to ban their originating IP...I think Ter can trace the IP from each post and ban them, something like this:

192.168.*.*

Where * is a wildcard. So any address with the first two parts will not enter or even be able to become a member.
The funny thing is it's pointless yelling at a bot. They aren't even human.

I can ban IP's with the * string, but most of those bots are from totally different IP's.

Re: Regarding spam bots

Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:53 am
by megasdkirby
Ter wrote:
megasdkirby wrote:
The funny thing is it's pointless yelling at a bot. They aren't even human.

I can ban IP's with the * string, but most of those bots are from totally different IP's.

:(

Darn...I thought most shared the same IP string. Or at least make it be somewhat "universal".

My next suggestions would have been the code verification process.

Re: Regarding spam bots

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 12:08 am
by Mike_302
Spoofing an IP isn't hard really, the best thing you can do is make user registration harder to complete for bots.

E-Mail validation is good, visual validation is good, also I occasionally out in an entry field I label with "Leave me Blank" or something, and any user registraton with data in it is auto deleted.

You just have to change up your methods until you find something effective.