Banning threads started by 0 post users?

eth0_

I moderate the tattoos/piercing forum, and we've had quite a lot of spam the past week or two, all from seemingly automated posters with 0 posts.

Is it possible to ban threads started by users with 0 posts for a while on this forum?

PowerHouseDan

either than i posts need to be approved before shown

ecksor

I dunno. I quite like being able to start threads.

Karl Hungus

Hmm, that sounds like an excellent idea.

Asok

What about new posters that register specificly to post on the forum?

mike65

Maybe a newbie should have been registered for say 24 hours before they can post, its not long I know but might be enough to frustrate passing trolls/spammers.

Mike.

aidan_walsh

its not long I know but might be enough to frustrate passing trolls/spammers.

In much the same way that DRM annoys pirates, tbh. Its the honest user that will be hurt. How many people will register because they want to make a post on a topic they were reading, now? How many will be willing to come back in 24 hours time to talk then?

mike65

I tend to belive that 'true belivers' will already be browsers and won't have a problem with a short wait.

Mike.

aidan_walsh

Impossible to know without any kind of analysis of the stats, but I tend to disagree.

Stark

I'm with aidan_walsh on this one.

eth0_

mike65 wrote:

I tend to belive that 'true belivers' will already be browsers and won't have a problem with a short wait.

Mike.

No no...this is about 0 posters starting THREADS, I don't mind if they post on an existing thread. It's just these spammers are creating threads left right and centre.

Karl Hungus

aidan_walsh wrote:

In much the same way that DRM annoys pirates, tbh. Its the honest user that will be hurt. How many people will register because they want to make a post on a topic they were reading, now? How many will be willing to come back in 24 hours time to talk then?

Yeah, what you said. That's far too arbitrary an action for my liking.

I like the idea of not being allowed to start threads untill you have say 5 posts,
that's not very bothersome at all.

mike65

No no...this is about 0 posters starting THREADS,

Okay then. Wait a day before starting thier first thread.

Mike.

InFront

Well I know that I for one was attracted to boards by posting a thread in horseracing, asking what verious terms I heard on the radio had meant. I think a lot of people come on here because they have a specific query - and then get hooked. So no, I think that would be quite a silly thing to do.

You're just going to get new members posting rubbish in threads they have no opinion on, just so they can start they thread they were thinking of. It would only add to the spam, surely?

I wouldn't have thought this was this a common thing? Not that I know the forum in question.

sceptre

eth0_ wrote:

No no...this is about 0 posters starting THREADS, I don't mind if they post on an existing thread. It's just these spammers are creating threads left right and centre.

They have this on digispy. And the DVDForums if memory serves. Something along the lines of needing 50 posts or thereabouts (or being registered for a month) before being allowed to start a new thread.

In my opinion it causes more hassle than it's worth. You get new posters coming into unrelated or slightly related threads and asking a question that really should be in a thread on its own. It's pretty darned annoying and messy. Clearing spammers tends to be easier if anything as long as they continue to start their own new useless threads.

Chakar

Well can you give any links to an example OP?

Kintarō Hattori

Chakar wrote:

Well can you give any links to an example OP?

Most likely not I'd think as they'd have been deleted for being spam.

eth0_

Chakar wrote:

Well can you give any links to an example OP?

Does it matter? It's spam...as in, buy this pill, it'll make your mickey grow to two foot long, that type of stuff.

amazingemmet

I'm with etho on this one not sure what it is but the forum seems to attract alot of spam. Also most the genuine posters on the forum who start threads with 0 posts generally are asking a question a quick search would answer

Chakar

eth0_ wrote:

Does it matter? It's spam...as in, buy this pill, it'll make your mickey grow to two foot long, that type of stuff.

Yeah thats a nuisance well it might be a good idea to make a few rules for example having a feature such as putting in a random set of characters to verify that it isn't a automated program.

Shabadu

Thing is, they're easier to catch if they start a new thread rather than just post it on an existing thread.

okidoki987

buy this pill, it'll make your mickey grow to two foot long

Excellent just what I've been looking for

REDUCTION CREAM

DublinWriter

Shabadu wrote:

Thing is, they're easier to catch if they start a new thread rather than just post it on an existing thread.

I've seen this with a couple of other vbulletin services I use.

They are basically spam bots, designed to automatically trawl for vbulletin sites, enrol, and start a new thread.

It's been a while since I enrolled here, and maybe this is in place already, but how about something like Yahoo! uses when signing up by getting the prospective user to type the characters in an automatically generated gif image of random distorted characters that aren't OCR-able.

muckwarrior

DublinWriter wrote:

It's been a while since I enrolled here, and maybe this is in place already, but how about something like Yahoo! uses when signing up by getting the prospective user to type the characters in an automatically generated gif image of random distorted characters that aren't OCR-able.

Thats called captcha. However, I recently read about how they've made bots that have over 97% success rate in reading them, so now they're making them harder and harder to read to the point where I sometimes cant tell what the fυck it's supposed to say!

Wertz

muckwarrior wrote:

Thats called captcha. However, I recently read about how they've made bots that have over 97% success rate in reading them, so now they're making them harder and harder to read to the point where I sometimes cant tell what the fυck it's supposed to say!

Yep...the one on ticketmatser gives me trouble sometimes.

How about this suggestion (and I mean forum wide):
New posters when they sign up can only post a new thread on the Newbies/FAQ forum....they get automatically redirected there if they attempt to post a thread elsewhere. Explain this to them in their registration eMail....anyone that has a genuine reason for posting will not mind and if it ends up being a spambot (either automated or the living/breathing variety) at least the threads are confined to a place where they are easily manageable and don't interfere with the flow of established niche forums. After a fixed time period/number of posts, the restriction is lifted...if it still ends up being a spambot then it's obviously got something worth spamming about and should probably be heeded

Or we could ban n00bs altogether

Gone West

How about we leave it as it is.
No point making the boards needlessly inaccessible.
Its almost no hassle to delete the spam ffs.

In the time it took me to type this post, I could have deleted and banned 10 users for spamming.

iFight

FuzzyLogic wrote:

How about we leave it as it is.
No point making the boards needlessly inaccessible.
Its almost no hassle to delete the spam ffs.

Agreed, people might go elsewhere if they have to wait to post what they want.

amp

This would cause people who started posting in a forum that does not increase post count (eg TCN) to be banned.

MiCr0

amp - best suggestion i've read in a while :-)

amp

Micro, you should post more in TCN. I think you'd enjoy it. You all would. THE LEADER KNOWS BEST!

Tar.Aldarion

I hear it is the best forum on boards, or so I hear.
Na na na na na na na na na leader, leader, leaderrrr

C Fodder

I've been thinking about this one and I believe that many / most new users want to ask something specific and probably start a new thread doing so so blocking threads started by 0 post users will probably put off many would be users. However would it be possible that a system like that used in PI for unregged users be implemented for all 1st posts creating a new thread, a forum mod must approve the post before it appears with the new user being messaged that they must await approval for thread starts. I know this may cause a logjam for many mods in busy forums but would this be any worse than spam?

This may not be technically possible in the method outlined but perhaps something similar could be worked out

WizZard

muckwarrior wrote:

Thats called captcha. However, I recently read about how they've made bots that have over 97% success rate in reading them, so now they're making them harder and harder to read to the point where I sometimes cant tell what the fυck it's supposed to say!

Captcha is so old school - boards.ie should move to KittenAuth for this

muckwarrior

WizZard wrote:

Captcha is so old school - boards.ie should move to KittenAuth for this

That is one hell of a good idea. Suprised it wasn't thought of sooner.

Stark

It seems like a good idea. But then you think of the kinds of people who like kittens, and ask yourself, do you want that plague upon us.

"OMg, so kute, lol".

Stark

Also I think this is pretty much the crux of the problem:

The current image output is very quickly done but not very secure. In a line you're the people responsible for making it harder for image comparison scripts being able to match the picture to a spammers DB of images. A tough task but relatively small problem domain.

Talliesin

It'll probably just make them more likely to Spam into the middle of threads where it's even more annoying.