SRL Archive - SRL Site Discussion

New steps in our war on spambots!


Hobbit

2013-04-21 18:33:18

Hello everyone,

Just a quick update for you on our latest steps to eliminate the spambot problem. Today I added two new plugins which will hopefully stop the problem completely.

The first is a brand new product to weed out spam bot registrations. Our current(previous) one obviously does not do a very good job and it caused a lot of false rejections and denied legitimate users from registering. The new plugin should weed out the bots better and not deny humans like it has been doing.

The second one should stop any posts and PMs from spambots that get though. I will not post the specifics of the thresholds but newly registered users will not be able to post links or send PMs to anyone other than a mod or and admin until they reach a certain (small) number of posts.


Hopefully this will be the end of our spambot problems, but keep reporting them if you see them!

Cheers
SRL Staff.

Silentcore

2013-04-21 19:30:20

Thank you man. Hopefully that stops them a bit..

Physic

2013-04-21 19:36:34

Wouldn't this prevent real people with few posts from asking other PMing other members for help? @Hobbit;

Hobbit

2013-04-21 19:38:57

Its a very small number of posts required and if they are PMing anyone other than an admin (ie account issues) before having that number of posts then they did not research their issue properly enough.

King

2013-04-21 20:17:53

I like this, thankyou<3

Physic

2013-04-21 20:19:03

From: Hobbit
Its a very small number of posts required and if they are PMing anyone other than an admin (ie account issues) before having that number of posts then they did not research their issue properly enough.

I guess and they could also post on a thread I guess.. Anyways, do you know where @YoHoJo; is? been trying to contact him via SMS and via skype. No response :( @Hobbit;

King

2013-04-21 20:20:12

From: Physic
I guess and they could also post on a thread I guess.. Anyways, do you know where @YoHoJo; is? been trying to contact him via SMS and via skype. No response :( @Hobbit;


I talked to him like two days ago, he might just be busy like me :D

senrath

2013-04-21 20:58:42

Does this only apply to accounts made after the change? Because I got a PM from someone with no posts a few minutes ago.

Hobbit

2013-04-21 21:20:01

PM me a screenie please @senrath;

Sin

2013-04-21 21:25:37

Well done man :)

senrath

2013-04-21 21:28:46

From: Hobbit
PM me a screenie please @senrath;


PM Sent.

Hobbit

2013-04-21 21:35:45


Well at least it's trying… hmmmmmmmmmmm

(From a freshly registered test account)

senrath

2013-04-21 21:39:16

Does it maybe count SSRL as staff since we have minimod powers?

Hobbit

2013-04-21 21:44:51


Nope, problem solved. Just had to make a minor edit to the plugin to reflect some changes for vb4.2.X

YoHoJo

2013-04-21 21:52:13

From: Hobbit

Nope, problem solved. Just had to make a minor edit to the plugin to reflect some changes for vb4.2.X


Yeah great, put me first on the list :X

Good work, let's hope this works well so Staff can use their time and efforts on important things!!!

Hobbit

2013-04-21 21:53:59

From: YoHoJo
Yeah great, put me first on the list :X
[IMG.]http://media.tumblr.com/fe04e7c18e405b366422c6ff85558afa/tumblr_inline_ml3l6ub3Z11qz4rgp.jpg

Good work, let's hope this works well so Staff can use their time and efforts on important things!!!


I didn't do it :( It did it by user id within usergroups :p
I'll probably modify it to link to forum leaders page instead of listing names.

senrath

2013-04-21 21:55:07

Glad things got sorted out.

Justin

2013-04-21 21:56:42

Poor YoHoJo, Going to get ALL the PM's now haha

YoHoJo

2013-04-21 22:39:42

http://villavu.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101868
D:
Oh well, only got though since it didn't have any actual URLs/hyperlinks, can't get em all but it will surely help!

Justin

2013-04-21 22:47:00

From: YoHoJo
http://villavu.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101868
D:
Oh well, only got though since it didn't have any actual URLs/hyperlinks, can't get em all but it will surely help!


The plugin removed the links

YoHoJo

2013-04-21 22:53:03

From: Justin
The plugin removed the links


>Smart enough to remove links from suspected spambot.
>Not smart enough to stop the post from getting through and banning him?

(Yeah I can see the argument that this would then ban any new users posting links) but:
I thought it would also give this message:
and replace PMs with 'Post Links', that would be nice yes?

Hobbit

2013-04-21 22:57:53

The denial of sending pm's and posting links, etc is a permissions plugin not and anti-spam one. The new anti-spam one is picking up threads left right and centre. Needs a little work on blocking registrations but it is moderating almost every single thread so far, and this is the first day of the beta…

Neznam

2013-04-21 23:14:13

Sweet! Looking forward to a bot free environment, ;) haha no but seriously great addition.

StickToTheScript

2013-04-22 08:54:25

This is going to be much nicer. Im kinda happy you did this. Thanks guys!

Neznam

2013-04-22 21:34:53

Well still seeing them come through, they just don't post links but do the whole " . c0m" thing.

Saw 2 threads already. Banned fairly quick.

Sin

2013-04-22 22:04:52

I don't think it's working :c
@Hobbit why not have posts that are made by users with less that X amount of posts moderator/SSRL approved? There are more than enough mods/ssrl'ers on at once (and in different TZ's) to deal with it.

Chris!

2013-04-23 02:16:19

Great addition! Once it works fully, that is!

Keep up the great work, Hobbit!

t4q

2013-04-23 08:32:27

good work, no more strange bot posts hopefully :)