Spam

[Sam]

Do we need a new CAPTCHA/verification system?

[DiogoJ42]

CAPTCHAs can easily be read by image recognition software these days

[Tom G]

The topic about mens vests has attracted the most views....

[Sam]

[quote=""DiogoJ42""]CAPTCHAs can easily be read by image recognition software these days [/quote]
A much better system would be to simply ask "What's the name of the new ride at Alton Towers this year?"

Oh wait...

[Big Dave]

Thought TTF had a question you had to answer?

[.Will]

It does. It's a simple addition question.

[Don't_Look_Down]

[quote=""Sam""]Do we need a new CAPTCHA/verification system? [/quote]

Better still, have all new accounts entered into a review queue system before full posting privileges are granted.

[Big Dave]

^ Equals 1 massive work load for the TTteam.

Anyways can this topic's name be changed and moved to the TT site news forum?

[Sam]

It's also amazingly off-putting to new members when they have to wait like they've sent off an application in the post. This is the internet, people (quite rightly) shouldn't have to wait before contributing to stuff! Forums like that tend to dry up quick.

I love how we've recycled this topic into something useful!

[Bote]

This recent wave of spam has been a bit of a one off. Most of the time any spam is removed within a matter of minutes. At present though we are a few Team members down due to various trips and holidays, ect, so it may sometimes take a little longer than usual.

The CAPTCHA system is reasonably secure. Bare in mind though that in a lot of spambot cases it's a human who will solve the puzzle in order to join. There are always a few that will slip through, but as said above we can usually deal with them fairly swiftly.

We need to try and keep the balance of keeping TTF open and easy for anyone to access, while secure from the spammers and spambots. Approval systems just make the forum feel less open and accessible. We don't want to come across as a site where we pick and choose members, and have to vet everyone before they can post.

Rest assured though, the Team are trying as best as we can to keep on top of this, and working hard to keep the forums spam free

As always though we urge you to hit the report button as soon as you see any spam or unacceptable posts. The sooner you report it, the sooner it can be dealt with

[Craig]

As an aside too, please don't reply to new topics created by spammers. If we have a spammer who creates a mass of new topics, we can remove the posts en masse. However, this leaves the posts from those who reply viewable on the forum. Considering the topics are about a load of rubbish, it causes additional work for the team in removing those posts separately. As Ian said, hitting the report button is the easiest thing to do .

[DiogoJ42]

Another advantage to the "you must make X posts in existing topics before you can start a new one" way of doing things

[Nightfall]

[quote=""DiogoJ42""]Another advantage to the "you must make X posts in existing topics before you can start a new one" way of doing things [/quote] I've always thought this was a good idea. It also stops new members creating topics that already exist.

[quote=""Sam""][quote=""DiogoJ42""]CAPTCHAs can easily be read by image recognition software these days [/quote]
A much better system would be to simply ask "What's the name of the new ride at Alton Towers this year?"

Oh wait...[/quote] :P

Joking aside this is quite a good idea. As this is an Alton Towers forum would it hurt to ask a really simple question such as "Name a ride at Alton Towers". It should stop a computer and If you don't know the answer chances are you're not going to want to join us lot anyway.

[Joel]

[quote=""Nightfall""][quote=""DiogoJ42""]Another advantage to the "you must make X posts in existing topics before you can start a new one" way of doing things [/quote] I've always thought this was a good idea. It also stops new members creating topics that already exist.[/quote]

But then spammers just post in existing top threads in the forum with their spam instead? :P

We could go down the better route of not allowing links in signatures and in the first say 10 posts, but that then encourages them to make 10 other junk posts so they can post their links, and also impedes a normal user who wants to sign up to make a post to link to say some SW7 info they just found, etc etc...


[quote=""Nightfall""][quote=""Sam""][quote=""DiogoJ42""]CAPTCHAs can easily be read by image recognition software these days [/quote]
A much better system would be to simply ask "What's the name of the new ride at Alton Towers this year?"

Oh wait...[/quote] :P

Joking aside this is quite a good idea. As this is an Alton Towers forum would it hurt to ask a really simple question such as "Name a ride at Alton Towers". It should stop a computer and If you don't know the answer chances are you're not going to want to join us lot anyway.[/quote]

We did this; however it doesn't take much for the spammer to Google "alton towers ride" and bingo!

The problem isn't with "spam bots" as you see it - we don't have an issue with automated registration robots that cheat the system and automatically create accounts to post spam under.

We unfortunately have an issue with human spam "bots", who are people paid to sign up to forums and then sell the account details to spam robots or spam rings. There are well documented groups of people in places like India who are paid like pennies for each forum they manually sign up to (particularly popular and busy forums) to be spammed.

We often see these spam accounts registered for days upon end before they are activated and used.

There is no answer to stopping spammers, they will get round any system we put in place (even team activations - they can use VPNs to spoof their IPs as UK IP addresses, leaving us little to try and weed them out!), so all we can do is play our part of removing them as quickly as possible and ask you guys to report them as soon as possible.

Posting a reply to a spammers thread is seen as a success to them - they think they've engaged you/us, and encourages them to target us more. DON'T reply to a thread (even to say "SPAMMMM!"), report it, and ignore it. Simple

[longy0151]

Crabbe kicked me from chat for repetitiveness today. This was an all time low for me.
I kept saying oh dear because I've forgot a piece of work to do and my mind wandered off and he kicked me. I am sad now.

[DiogoJ42]

I wouldn't take it personally... it's automated. you can just rejoin, it's not a ban.