More Moderators for the Forum?

[Rogerborg]

Looks like it's time for keyword or national/regional IP blocking.

Haha, no, I'd drunk-ban everyone then burn the place to the ground.

NO CAPES!

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[proffrink]

New registrations are suspended until this can be figured out. Clearly the question and answer challenge has been solved and shared somewhere.

Looks like it's time for keyword or national/regional IP blocking.

Unfortunately most are smart enough to use a VPN. Keyword blocking is something I'm trying via Cleantalk, but for whatever reason it doesn't appear to always be working.
These spam posts are usually deleted within an hour but some are done at 4am when no one with current moderation powers is around.

New moderators: it's one of the options that I'm looking into now. I'll post here with an update.

 

[Speedbird_666]

@proffrink Thanks for the update.

This forum is a fantastic resource and has a very good core community - I hope this can be sorted soon.  

 

[RostokMcSpoons]

Three dots on top right of a post ?

Thanks, I was still in the 'unread' summary view so didn't get the option menu for each post.  D'oh!

 

[Cannonfodder]

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That's all of us though

 

[Rogerborg]

New registrations are suspended until this can be figured out. Clearly the question and answer challenge has been solved and shared somewhere.

Thanks, I honour your service.

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Would it be possible to delete posts without mod intervention if X number of user reports are received for them?

 

[Speedbird_666]

Would it be possible to delete posts without mod intervention if X number of user reports are received for them?

That's an interesting idea - but it could be weaponised to bin off posts that the mob just doesn't like, even if it doesn't contravene any rules per se. Remember Mr No_Face?

I think more moderators is the answer. I reckon supporters such as yourself act as the 'hiring board' (if they don't want to throw their own name in the hat) - I assume you have your own forum section ring-fenced from the masses where such discussion could be held? Just another brainfart.

 

[Khyber]

More mods would be the answer. I'm trawling multiple times a day almost daily. Makes it hard to navigate unread posts which is how I normally view the forum when all these chemical ads are strewn across the site. I wouldn't mind taking on a role to help out.

 

[Tackle]

That's an interesting idea - but it could be weaponised to bin off posts that the mob just doesn't like, even if it doesn't contravene any rules per se. Remember Mr No_Face?

Means numerous peeps having to report potentially dozens of times, or more given yesterday and today, that's a lot of work. 

I agree though that more mods, with the ability to hide any content posted by problem spammers, with the deletion process dealt with by the higher tier mods. 

 

[EDcase]

Whatever gets decided it should be soon...  There's a load more ?

I don't know what is used as a bot test these days but maybe changing the question?

And maybe having a couple of different ones?

Or is it possible to put a filter on posts to detect a list of chemicals

 

[concretesnail]

Holly crap. Six pages of spammer crap on the mobile version of the activity feed before I find something not bot made. Arrrgh. 

I don't mind helping out if it helps get rid of all the crap.

 

[Tommikka]

The real answer is just moderators, ideally with a range of lifestyles and forum obsession to cover the late night / early hours spamming that is more likely to get through

Anti bot sign up methods all get beaten somehow.  Many questions have the answer in the question, therefore a bit of AI can often identify the answer or at least learn from failures.  If the forum locks out x number of fails then the bot just needs to report back it’s failures for another to try, or put the question to a human and then the answer can be shared around 

Captcha Am I a robot text images worked for a while until AI could learn to read them (Bearing in mind back in the late 80s/early 90s as a student I did a site visit to see an international distributors handwriting recognition system, which they didn’t call AI but the system was learning to read & guess hand written forms with two clerks each confirming / correcting every guess

The picture Captchas aren’t really checking that you get the answer right, but measure your mouse movements.  A bot would have been expected to be efficient and a human to be wobbly.  But AI bots can learn to act like a human with ‘randomised’ hesitation and wobble 

(But don’t worry too much about AI taking over the world, ask ChatGPT who the prime minister is, correct their answer and see what response you get)

Post filtering, automated report handling etc are a pain in the arse.  They will probably harass more human members then bots, and become a denial of service attack on a forum member that someone doesn’t like.

Some of these can be configured into forum software fairly easily and others are likely to be much more effort than some semi willing voluntolds 

The recent spam may look like a lot and is frustrating for the viewer.  Moderators and the software could be successfully smiting more before it gets through…… On one forum a few years ago went through a couple of days of constant denial of service spam bot attacks, and at times we were blocking each other out of the forum with IP range blocking ….. a lot of SMS & emails were circulating to find a moderator who could still get in and green light friendly ranges to allow the rest of us back in

 

[hitmanNo2]

Do mods not get a e-mail notification of a spam report?  I'm a mod on Arnies and I get an e-mail, then a couple of taps on my phone and boom.  Spammer banned and all their posts gone.

 

[Tommikka]

Do mods not get a e-mail notification of a spam report?  I'm a mod on Arnies and I get an e-mail, then a couple of taps on my phone and boom.  Spammer banned and all their posts gone.

It will depend on the forum software and the moderators configuration

From a search of my email notifications and a scan of my notifications settings in forums that I moderate/have moderated  it’s a no.

The emails have notifications based on my settings but not moderation ones (or at least not in the email titles that I’ve scanned through)

My user settings for notifications don’t include moderation ‘events’ (but I do have them set on a few ‘events’ that are common flags for moderation needs)

The forum software does have moderation menus which include the standard actions and also flags the reports.  I would also expect a pop up alert message on log on

So I wouldn’t be expecting a moderating email prompting me to sign in, but could be getting emails based on my settings which could indicate a need.

Plus if someone chose to message me directly knowing I’m a moderator then I’d get an alert email to check messages …. But I don’t expect that the reports  queue / message a mod group etc are on email alerts (for those that I’m in)

My moderating process would follow a similar manner to my general forum process - sign in, see any alerts, check the new threads/post lists 

 

[Guest]

More spam this morning, despite new sign ups being banned, new users signed up 2hours ago

 

[Speedbird_666]

More spam this morning, despite new sign ups being banned, new users signed up 2hours ago

I've reported everything I can find. Gets a bit messy around the classifieds as they have posted a couple of adverts in each section so I might have missed one or two.

 

[Guest]

I've reported everything I can find. Gets a bit messy around the classifieds as they have posted a couple of adverts in each section so I might have missed one or two.

It’s all very well, but @proffrink said new sign ups  had been banned, yet a load more SPAM bots have signed up this morning ??‍

 

[Speedbird_666]

It’s all very well, but @proffrink said new sign ups  had been banned, yet a load more SPAM bots have signed up this morning ??‍

Yeh. I know. If something isn't done soon it could kill the forum. 

Let's hope things are moving behind the scenes to sort this out. 

 

[Guest]

This one signed up 12 minutes ago ffs

https://airsoft-forums.uk/profile/38308-cindy/

 

[RostokMcSpoons]

Sad days when this is the most active thread on the forum ?