Spring RTS Engine

They're clearly real humans doing the spamming, not very good at it either ( URL links that aren't done right and don't resolve? )

The site has a UK phone number, perhaps we can shame the UK side of the business into stopping.

Google phpbb ------- spam.

Others have tried, it is some dodgy operation with no interest in stopping being absolute dicks.

IPs are Indonesian.

Feel free to complain at:
abuse-mailbox: abuse@telkom.net.id

Yes, other much larger and more influential forums already failed with that.
It is human spammers so captchas etc do not work.
Other things like not allowing to post links until account has certain number of posts would bring too much annoyance for users.
Disabling homepage-field in profile might do some good but some users want to link to their own homepages i guess.
Think they are now enough active mods so that spam gets deleted fast enough, it usually does not stay long.

knorke wrote:Yes, other much larger and more influential forums already failed with that.
It is human spammers so captchas etc do not work.
Other things like not allowing to post links until account has certain number of posts would bring too much annoyance for users.
Disabling homepage-field in profile might do some good but some users want to link to their own homepages i guess.
Think they are now enough active mods so that spam gets deleted fast enough, it usually does not stay long.

Does the version of phpbb we use have a mechanism for preventing posts containing certain words (no ban, just a inline warning)? I mean... we never discuss ------- or cabinets in normal conversation so a black-list might be an effective strategy...

Does the version of phpbb we use have a mechanism for preventing posts containing certain words (no ban, just a inline warning)?

Did find it right now. What use would that have though? The posts still need to be deleted if they have an inline warning or not.
It can replace words though to censor them..
For test i added "kiiiiitchen" being replaced with "-------"
Not sure that helps anythough, think they mostly care about the urls.
Also the question if spammers even notice that they spam is becoming useless then they might continue posting.

edit: this thread is now morse code.
edit 2: it is many different urls..and not all spam is abou same thing.
imo deleting works good enough right now.

I would look at somehow filtering the posted urls.

I meant "prevent people from being able to post comments containing a word" not "hide a word"... is the former not an option?

Some ------- related sayins that I think fit well in here:

Communities begin by building their -------.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the -------.

Who frequents the ------- smells of smoke.

It grieveth one dog that another goeth into the -------

the "inline warning" confused me.
The only option for banned words seems to be replacement.
But with human spammers, they can just bypass by using other words.
or like this maybe:
kitchen

hmmm


Have there been any recent advances in -------?

Works well

Can we track them, and spam there forums with kitchend adds?

maybe install: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=1545695 ?

todo so:
1st we need one with ssh access
2nd WE NEED NEW FORUM ADMINS, cause all three (Fnordia, SJ, Yeha) are all retired!

the ------- spammers are real people though, not programs

ALERT: Unwanted people entering our community.

Force new users to write in an introductions forum before they are allowed to make posts elsewhere. E.g. "Hi, my name is Cheesecan I like to play ARM. Please approve me."

This way, at least spam will be contained to that forum alone.

2nd WE NEED NEW FORUM ADMINS, cause all three (Fnordia, SJ, Yeha) are all retired!

This & anti-spam stuff. Vote FLOZi for president!

Force new users to write in an introductions

"Hi, my name is ---- --- ----- and I like it when people purchase kit_chens/viagra/geese."

edit: The word "kit_chens" was filtered

Force new users to write in an introductions forum before they are allowed to make posts elsewhere. E.g. "Hi, my name is Cheesecan I like to play ARM. Please approve me."

I think that is not feasible, it would turn away too many new users.
Especially players who just want to report a bug.. we can not afford to turn away many of them.

There have also been spammers posting "meaningful" things like:
"So the code seems quite accurate. Another is where the difference between min Wind and max Wind and is relatively small, it will remain mostly at the edges. But in this case, the difference is a very small, as mentioned, so it will be very noticeable anyway."
If you do not look closely you would not notice it was copy-pasted from another post or or just previous postings remixed into a new one.
Those are only noticeable as spam because their profile is filled with urls. Or they later go back to edit the post.

So posting something like "I found this game very nice thank you" is not an obstacle.

jK:
Every thread about anti-bot-plugins I see some people reporting that some bots can defeat them. For human spammers it is no use at all either.

We have forum admins (I am one, grouping is just kinda fubar so I still have moderator green), we need people with more access than just that, currently we have only abma that I am aware of who might be able to add new plugins etc.

The situation is complicated by the custom code in spring's phpbb install (e.g. spam box). Plans are afoot, etc.

edit: Got abma to fix mine and knorke's admin colours

How about reporting outohides a thread, and moderators just makes it visible again?

PicassoCT wrote:How about reporting outohides a thread, and moderators just makes it visible again?

Do you know of a plugin that does that? It should only hide posts if "spam" is selected as reason, as one reports for other reasons too, where it should not autohide.

I think just deleting spam is the simplest way. It is not as bad anymore as when sometimes spamthreads from several days piled up.
That was really annoying, now it is mild in comperasion and imo does not disturb too much.
To me it seems threads usally are now deleted within a few hours max, often within minutes. Yes, it requires some seconds of stupid clicking by moderation, yes no spam at all would be nicer, but seems so far it is the best that can be archived.

That sounds very useful for threads I personally don't like, such as threads talking about my ------- company advertisements and methods of removing them, Ill just report it and itll go away temporarily and I keep reporting