ULTRABUF Posted November 6, 2006 Share Posted November 6, 2006 Yeah, the UK rocketry/pyro forum makes you write a little something about your pyro experience, and why you wanted to join the forum and stuff. I dont know how long they've been doing it because I only joined there a couple months ago, but yeah. It would probably be a nice idea to do it here too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oriansbelt Posted November 7, 2006 Share Posted November 7, 2006 Well if the mods/admins don't mind then I think a paragraph would be the best way to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 Ok, I'm not fucking kidding this time. The next person to post in a spam thread gets their posting ability removed for 2 weeks. It's just post whoring to boost their post count in my eyes. It does no good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 All new users must now be validated. For the admins and mods, the info will be posted in the Admin section momentarily. It may take a few days for the spamming to stop due to the users already being in our system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chemguy Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 All new users must now be validated. For the admins and mods, the info will be posted in the Admin section momentarily. It may take a few days for the spamming to stop due to the users already being in our system. Great . I really hope this works, and I also hope it doens't take ages to validate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted November 13, 2006 Author Share Posted November 13, 2006 Seems to be working. I've caught a dozen or so spammers so far. However, we've only gotten one person to respond to the confirmation e-mail. All the spammers have fake e-mail addresses, so just an e-mail confirmation may work. We shall see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted December 20, 2006 Author Share Posted December 20, 2006 Just an update guys. Things are going much better. We have several more confirmed members, all of whom seem very knowledgeable and I hope will really add to our community.  I've been trying to figure out which e-mail addresses are primarily the spammers. It's easy to pick out some like "Free-viagra@asdfhsfh.com" I may start approving a few not so easy to tell ones just so I can block them in the future. There may be a few spam posts, but it will be a one time thing so I can block all e-mails from those hosts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted January 17, 2007 Author Share Posted January 17, 2007 Alright, the user validation thing is going well, but I feel it is impeding new users who may not have any prior experience, and are maybe intimidated to answer any questions. I am going to move it to just e-mail validation and see how that works. I'll go back to the current system if we start getting spammers again. It is kind of fun to learn something about the members though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocket Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Well its stared again , but if you haven’t changed it yet we have a prob, looks like the user validation is the way to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted January 19, 2007 Author Share Posted January 19, 2007 I already changed it to the e-mail confirmation. No idea how they're actually able to confirm those though. Anyway I am just going to leave it as it is for a while, see how it goes. For some reason they're targeting the Spudgun section instead of chem section like last time. The current system catches 10 or so spammers for everyone it lets in. Anyway, from now on, if you post in a spam thread like that you're getting docked 10 or 20 posts. I'm just tired of it. It does no good, and doesn't help any of us to find it faster. Saying "This should be deleted" Well, so shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oriansbelt Posted January 23, 2007 Share Posted January 23, 2007 I think there's an other bot in general chemistry, so-much-for the spudgun section. I think we need to go back to the write a paragraph thing. There has been a new spam post on here every time I've gotten on today and that was atleast 3 times. They must have a program to reply to confermation e-mails or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h0lx Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 how about just changins some of the vital field's names? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
styropyro Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Or do you think you could add a form that would be a "radio" feild where you would have to click yes on it in order to register, so if you don't select yes, it makes an error like you forgot to put in some of the vital info to register. Think that would trick a bot because they wouldn't be programmed to click that extra feild? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozentech Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Or do you think you could add a form that would be a "radio" feild where you would have to click yes on it in order to register, so if you don't select yes, it makes an error like you forgot to put in some of the vital info to register. Think that would trick a bot because they wouldn't be programmed to click that extra feild?Someone has written a bot that can navigate through most if not all of the Invision Power Board software's user validations. It's not just this forum, since about last November every IPB powered forum I know of has been infested with spambots. A group level set to require validation for the 1st 5 posts or so, and active moderation, is all I can think of to prevent it ? Or the essay assignment LOL... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted February 10, 2007 Author Share Posted February 10, 2007 We're going to have to figure out something. The e-mail validation thing doesn't work, and I don't have the time for the admin approval thing. I suppose I could do admin approval, and just automatically deny the obvious spammer e-mails, and appove everything else. This would cut back, but not completely eliminate. I'd be afraid to deny well meaning members though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h0lx Posted February 13, 2007 Share Posted February 13, 2007 I would just alter the software a bit, especially the registration part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted February 20, 2007 Author Share Posted February 20, 2007 I changed some forum titles slightly to see if it helps at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cplmac Posted February 20, 2007 Share Posted February 20, 2007 I think it is the word general in that forum title that was a keyword. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSidewinder Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 I changed some forum titles slightly to see if it helps at all. Well, it may be coincidence but there are no spam posts in the "trouble areas" (at least so far), after your title editing. Â With luck, that did it. If not, there's always the dreaded Admin Approval. Â How many new applications do we get per day here, anyway? Something tells me it's a hell of a lot more than just those we see make it through the process. Â M Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted February 21, 2007 Author Share Posted February 21, 2007 Back during admin approval I approved maybe 1-2 a week. Looking through the validating members, we get 10-15 applications a week, so 1-2 new members a day. A lot of which are spammers as it turns out. The e-mail system is weeding a good portion of them out. I think one spam system has a way to get through though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSidewinder Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 Ah, ok. Not as much as I expected.  If you need to go back to that, I'd be happy to help. I feel I should give SOMETHING back for what I've gotten here..... M EDIT: *sigh* I see I opened my mouth too soon. I just suspended a new user in Gen. Chemistry. Idiot spammer..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted February 22, 2007 Author Share Posted February 22, 2007 I might need to change Gen. Chem to just Chemistry. Then again, maybe they have the actual forum locked on and it doesn't matter what I change it too. I'll experiment a bit. The name changes really seemed to cut down the spam though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozentech Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 I might need to change Gen. Chem to just Chemistry. Then again, maybe they have the actual forum locked on and it doesn't matter what I change it too. I'll experiment a bit. The name changes really seemed to cut down the spam though. On the first pyro site I was working on, I was bridging a phpBB based forum package in. I then moved to a different host without taking that one completely down, but left an auto-forward there. Since then, dozens of weird user names have been applying for forum membership , and the forum is not even accessable from the index page ! So he bots, are linked to a crawler function that just crawls the web looking for "forum.php" or similar files on web sites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mumbles Posted February 23, 2007 Author Share Posted February 23, 2007 It seems like it also has a crawler in place to search for forums with the word "general" in it, or perhaps "gen". I am sure there is a big list it searches for. I really hope we don't have some of the latest generation spammers which are actually real people. This forum software is the last free version so I am sure it is well known by the spammers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewest Posted February 23, 2007 Share Posted February 23, 2007 How much would an upgrade cost, and would that even help? You might find there are volunteers willing to pitch in some money if asked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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