Time to fix your spam problem, Tim.

[Zub]

Every time a check MB.com (and that's 4-5 times daily), there is on average one new valid post and about a dozen spam message.

I report them everytime but I'm starting to be afraid to visit some posts in case a mis-click somewhere and infect myself with the random viagra, pron, escort or whatever spam on the page.

I visit a number of other websites (most non-professional), some with quite a larger user base and they don't seem affected nearly a much.
This is probably due to a quicker reaction of mods (or a larger number of those) but also a stricter or more efficient way of handling newcomers.

On top of the potential risk for the forum users, this really doesn't put MB.com and the software it promotes under a very bright light..

Time to fix this cr4p.
Cheers,
Zub

[Lyrix]

Indeed, biggest reason i don't visit this forum anymore.. Pretty sure many others do the same.

[Tim]

Yea the spam is pretty hard core.

The reason I've been putting off this is because there is going to be a big whole new MB.com everything in the near future. I was going to keep it entirely secret until the time comes, but yea, now you know.

The whole new everything site would include everything new from scratch, including forums, so I wasn't too up for putting work into the forum system until then. When the right time came, I am actually going to poll and reach out to the entire community to drive pretty much the entirety of the new MB site.

Know what I mean?

I do get those spam reports, so do the other mods, and we do yoink them every day. But yea, there is a lot of spam lately. *raises fist to the sky*

[Chamassa]

Unless im asleep i useless remove spam <1 hour at the moment.
Thing is, we get 20+ a day :P

[Drarkan]

I have seen things on wordpress like not posting messages with more than one link in it and wait for review of a mod, and what not, those were for comment posts on articles however, so I wonder if a forum has a similar method to filter crap. though its tough cause legit people have more than one link sometimes so you never know if you're filtering a legit person and making them wait a few hours to have their post viewed by the public, though perhaps that's the price to pay for a safe site right?

[Tim]

Drar you're pretty much right, Wordpress has a lot more built in anti-spam things than the forums have.

When the new MB site comes around I will probably be looking at some of the awesome members who have shown a good noggin on their shoulders to help moderate the forums, not to mention other areas of the site.

All in all, it is really fun creating new sites, especially coming up with new ideas, features, ways to fight spam, having community members want to contribute, everything. I'm looking forward to it

[xartin]

Tim,

If your planning to redo the mb.com website maybe permanently locking or deleting some of the older heavy spam threads might be an enjoyable change for forum users.

[Chamassa]

Originally Posted by xartin

Tim,

If your planning to redo the mb.com website maybe permanently locking or deleting some of the older heavy spam threads might be an enjoyable change for forum users.

The issue is not so much with older threats, or with 5 stars.
The fact that spambots pick 5 star threats is an effect of how the forum works.
If we lock older topics, they will just use the newer ones.
The issue is that (i think it is) Vbulletin, or atleast this version, seems quite easy to release a spambot on.

[Zub]

the *other* multiboxing website is also on vbulletin i believe, and doesn't have half as much spam (or at least it gets blocked/deleted before i get to see it)

[Drarkan]

Yeah I hardly see anything on D-B.com at all, though fact is I think theres more moderators for that on that particular website. I think thats the major weapon when it comes to spam on a forum. The people. Tim like you said, you will promote some people to help police the site from spam bots, best thing I've heard yet on the topic. If a mod can't do it, then let a human mod do it! If one person only has 2 hours a day to scan the site every 30 mins while on the computer, then if there are 5-10 people who do that, then bingo, you've covered all bases. I think if you have people in different timezones that would help cover the site for the most of the 24/7.