Straighterline spammer / policy change needed

[dmjacobsen]

Many of us have observed this insane person spamming about Straighterline throughout the board multiple times per day. Many of us have seen similar spammers create one or more accounts for similar purposes.

Would it not make sense to restrict creation of new threads to accounts who have, let's say, 10 posts? Many of the questions newbies come here with have already been addressed, and this might force them to search for topics instead of re-hashing old information. And, of course, it will cut down on at least the less persistent spammers.

Or perhaps restrict new accounts from posting at all for 30 minutes after account creation. These people want to post quickly and move on to their next target, so either of these would help. Of course, you have the downside of possibly losing some new members, but I'm betting that many legitimate users lurk for a while before actually creating an account anyway.

[jsd]

Agreed. This is a very simple option to set on the board. There are similar options where new users can create threads, but can't post URLs. These are some quick anti-spam steps we could be taking.

[Prloko]

I disagree. This site does a FANTASTIC job of identifying and removing spammers within a day or two. Just use the report button. The other site (degreeinfo) has a similar limit for new users. Put it this way, I've been a "new" user on there for like 3 years. I don't bother commenting because once my comment gets approved, the post is stale. This forum is fine the way it is, and I don't think we should be putting any kind of newbie limits.

[jsd]

I disagree. This site does a FANTASTIC job of identifying and removing spammers within a day or two. Just use the report button. The other site (degreeinfo) has a similar limit for new users. Put it this way, I've been a "new" user on there for like 3 years. I don't bother commenting because once my comment gets approved, the post is stale. This forum is fine the way it is, and I don't think we should be putting any kind of newbie limits.

There definitely shouldn't be a waiting period where someone has to "approve" the comment. I dislike that, too. But there are other options available that would make it so we don't have to see this SL junk everyday that are much easier on legitimate new users.

[dmjacobsen]

I disagree. This site does a FANTASTIC job of identifying and removing spammers within a day or two. Just use the report button. The other site (degreeinfo) has a similar limit for new users. Put it this way, I've been a "new" user on there for like 3 years. I don't bother commenting because once my comment gets approved, the post is stale. This forum is fine the way it is, and I don't think we should be putting any kind of newbie limits.

I don't think that it needs to be so restrictive that moderators have to approve every post for X number of posts. That puts too much work on the moderators.

The moderators here are doing a great job of quickly removing garbage. This isn't a commentary on how well they're doing their job. However, putting some controls in place would take some of the work off of the moderators and also reduce the time wasted by users who read and respond to the posts prior to the moderators getting to them.

[cookderosa]

I disagree. This site does a FANTASTIC job of identifying and removing spammers within a day or two. Just use the report button. The other site (degreeinfo) has a similar limit for new users. Put it this way, I've been a "new" user on there for like 3 years. I don't bother commenting because once my comment gets approved, the post is stale. This forum is fine the way it is, and I don't think we should be putting any kind of newbie limits.

you should message Kizmet, that doesn't seem right.... I thought a person was only new for their first 2 posts or something?

[mednat]

I don't like the idea of limiting posts for new users. The spam problem is annoying when it happens, but it's really infrequent. In a way, I feel like the spammer wins if we have to do something that restricts the speech of new users who have valid questions.

[dfrecore]

I will say that I don't think limiting a new user's ability to create a new thread will help, since most of the time (it seems to me), they just post in old threads anyway.

Maybe add a moderator or two to help with this type of thing? A couple of very active users who can go in quickly and delete these spammers? That seems to be the quickest and easiest thing to do to make the forum continue being a great place for the majority of users.

Just a thought, it's not like it happens every day or anything. It seems to come in bursts, and then go away for a long time.

[jsd]

I check in constantly, mostly out of habit as I work a deskjob, and I have forum admin experience! I can help if needed


Even without limited new posts or making them go to an approval queue, we could make it take a few posts before someone can add a URL in their message, that will cut back on some spam.

[Prloko]

you should message Kizmet, that doesn't seem right.... I thought a person was only new for their first 2 posts or something?

Let me correct myself, I've been a member for 19 months, not 3 years (it feels like it ) I have posted 7 times, and it is still delayed.