Yes.. perhaps a captcha at user registration step?
We've actually already implemented this. So this may be an instance in which a person is manually making the accounts, but then uses automation to post spam. (Or perhaps does this manually as well, to an extent).
We can only do so much to block spammers from creating accounts - this part is really hard to distinguish - so most of the preventative work we do is in catching and preventing spammy posts as they are submitted. Without going into too much detail, our solution for this is a rules set that analyzes the content of the posts to see if it matches certain criteria. This set is regressive, so we can enhance it each time spam is posted with data seeded from what came through, in order to ensure that the same (and broadly similar) spam can't be re-posted. It actually works pretty well - we are positively hammered with spam attempts, and the great majority of them are blocked - but it's not perfect.
The most recent examples users have seen all made it through primarily because they were in Korean, which is not a language that our anti-spam measures have been tuned for (given that it's not what we've encountered in the past). I've just made some changes that I think will help us do a much better job of automatically preventing these Korean posts from appearing, though. We shall see.
My apologies for these posts cluttering up the forum, though. No amount of spam is acceptable to us.
EDIT: scratch that. didn't read the part about manual account creation ._.
Actually thought #2: is there a plugin to assign an exponential cooldown between thread creation?
EDIT: thread related: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/foreign-korean-spammers-spam-nightmare.114712/
EDIT: thread related: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/foreign-korean-spammers-spam-nightmare.114712/
- Jul 19, 2015
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There problem is that the second you start talking in anything that even resembles specificity about your anti-spam measures your as-good-as nullifying them. You kind of have to just take it on good faith that its essentially an arms race w/ both sides constantly evolving their tool set.
How about only allowing X posts per minute/hour/day (or a combination)? The previous attacks were so big that the forum was hardly usable, at least that could be improved a little bit by limiting the allowed posts/topics. Even a high number that no user would ever reach might help things a bit 
New Posts came up empty for a few hours a few days ago ._. because I ignored spambots 1 to 6
- Jul 19, 2015
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The ideal solution is to improve the rulesets & tools that detect spam and stops you guys from seeing it. Solutions that degrade the experience for everyone raise the barrier for entry to legitimate new users. Converting passers by to active accounted users is the holy grail for basically any forum and small barriers to entry here can have quite large long term impacts on new user signup / new user activity.
EDIT: to be clear i speak from past experience dealing w/ this shit. I have no insight, impact or say in how its done at SFFn. Im not site staff.
EDIT: to be clear i speak from past experience dealing w/ this shit. I have no insight, impact or say in how its done at SFFn. Im not site staff.
Got it. Wish there's something I could do to help ._. completely clueless about forum developer stuff
- Jul 19, 2015
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Using the report function really does make a big difference. It surfaces things in a way that means moderators / staff dont need to go hunting for problem content or find it in the normal course of reading the forums, enables a range of effective intervention to be taken much more quickly than they otherwise would, makes it much easier to spot patterns in the types of spam & their contents and see any weaknesses in the automated systems that are in place.
Find a Korean user & make him/her admin/moderator. He/she understands Korean, and active on Asian timezones LOL.
Anyway.. there should be some spam blockers for forums, right? Like what @jØrd said before:
Anyway.. there should be some spam blockers for forums, right? Like what @jØrd said before:
- Jul 19, 2015
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there are tools and rulsets in place that are constantly being evolved. The thing is no one can talk about them publicly w/out essentially nullifying them in the process. All I can really say here is that you have to take it on faith that as new spam attacks emerge and make it through to the forums where you guys can see them that there is work happening behind the scenes to make sure that that approach wont be successful in the future. Dealing w/ spam is an arms race at the end of the day.
Posting our anti-spam tactics, software and other measures here would be like announcing to the world exactly where we keep the spare keys to the ultra massive SFF parts stash we have hidden
I believe we're here to give input & discuss suggestions.
Definitely not to ask forum admins to post the anti-spam tactics..
Definitely not to ask forum admins to post the anti-spam tactics..
