Bots are out of control, what are you doing about it?

[Chemii]

People are asked to pay a premium for this site to get it without ads and yet you have bots running rampant posting things every day. It doesn't seem to bode well for security concerns honestly.

Why is it a consistent problem?

[Temp name]

People are asked to pay a premium for this site to get it without ads and yet you have bots running rampant posting things every day. It doesn't seem to bode well for security concerns honestly.

Why is it a consistent problem?

Because it's fairly easy to get around literally any spam filter, and new accounts are easy to make.

Also if you're talking about the BABA black magic, or whatever, Chaud says they're not actually bots

[micwini]

Because it's fairly easy to get around literally any spam filter, and new accounts are easy to make.

Also if you're talking about the BABA black magic, or whatever, Chaud says they're not actually bots

Minimum amount of posts needed before you can create a thread yourself. Starting at 100 or so. Problem solved.

[quite an expert in wow]

Do you have suggestions how to resolve it? Like an actual technical solution?

- - - Updated - - -

Minimum amount of posts needed before you can create a thread yourself. Starting at 100 or so. Problem solved.

There are multiple accounts that create bogus posts already (just spamming 'this post helped me' etc.) to get the postcount up. Not an ideal solution. Also it brings a barrier to people that just don't like to post often but may have very good things to contribute when they feel like it.

[faithbane]

Minimum amount of posts needed before you can create a thread yourself. Starting at 100 or so. Problem solved.

so they will just write a new algorithm to spam 100 times before they open a topic.. great. That wouldn't solve anything but minimum wait time before you can open a topic and something like a 1 hour CD between topics will be fine..

[Temp name]

Minimum amount of posts needed before you can create a thread yourself. Starting at 100 or so. Problem solved.

So instead of being easily spotted new threads, they'd be buried in other threads, cool.

Also, a lot of people make accounts specifically for the guild recruitment forums, you want them to spam elsewhere to be allowed to do that?

This thread comes up every time there's a spambot wave, and Chaud gives the same answer each time..

[MHMabrito]

Do you have suggestions how to resolve it? Like an actual technical solution?.

More than likely not, like every other complaining post on this forum.

[Gaidax]

Add kaptcha on new thread creation and 15 minutes cooldown on creation of another thread afterwards.

Not claiming it will magically solve all the issues, but at least we won't get a bloody wall of new shit threads in general every bloody day.

[roboscorcher]

People are asked to pay a premium for this site to get it without ads and yet you have bots running rampant posting things every day. It doesn't seem to bode well for security concerns honestly.

Why is it a consistent problem?

If they just IP-banned Russia and China, things would be easier. (just kidding, though I imagine a lot of traffic comes from there)

[schwarzkopf]

Because it's fairly easy to get around literally any spam filter, and new accounts are easy to make.

It is quite easy to put in systems to prevent the wholesale (multi page) garbage that turns up. Not sure why it hasn't been done.

If admins don't want to limit new accounts, then tarpitting accounts and posts is another set of ideas that can work.

In essence when a post is made, you make newish accounts wait a certain period of time (pseudo random) to repost. Any post within that time doubles the next delay.
You do the same for account creation from a given IP address.

In all cases you don't stop the eventual post or creation, you just slow down bots dramatically. Similar methods were used to stop bots attacking internet services (e.g. SMTP).

[Irian]

Just add a post requirement of about 20-30 before you can post a thread. Many forums already have something like that.

[Calfredd]

Just add a post requirement of about 20-30 before you can post a thread. Many forums already have something like that.

"This post helped me a lot"

What stops those kinds of posts? Where they spam random threads with a similar sentence for all of them, even if it's about someone who died?

[Puupi]

New accounts should have a post count limit AND time gate before they can create threads.

Also, captcha.

[Irian]

"This post helped me a lot"

What stops those kinds of posts? Where they spam random threads with a similar sentence for all of them, even if it's about someone who died?

Yes, it's still possible for bots to spam threads. But there's a big difference between having to post 30 replies before flooding the feed with bot threads, and being able to do so instantly.

[cparle87]

Minimum amount of posts needed before you can create a thread yourself. Starting at 100 or so. Problem solved.

So your solution to bots making spam threads is... require them to spam post in every thread they can find to be able to make spam threads? Doesn't sound helpful.

[alturic]

Do you have suggestions how to resolve it? Like an actual technical solution?

Two really simple ones that legitimate users wouldn't mind.

CAPTCHA
Requiring a profile field/few profile fields to be filled out.

There's a few others but increases friction for users and staff.

[Orange Joe]

Two really simple ones that legitimate users wouldn't mind.

CAPTCHA
Requiring a profile field/few profile fields to be filled out.

There's a few others but increases friction for users and staff.

Speak for yourself. I would be greatly annoyed by those.

[Unholyground]

Honestly, if you are on the internet this much and cannot tell the difference or do not have a proper anti-virus that is on you.

[Orange Joe]

civfanatics.com isn't too bad. Captcha, and two easy fields to put the answers into, and it's very simple, but not 'bot-simple' unless it's written specifically for that site.

(i.e. one field the instructions are to put 'OK' in the field, and the other one is put a specific letter from the word Civilization in the field. Not sure if it changes which letter to ask for each time.)

I know how it works. would still rather not have it. The threads aren't really an issue to me. They are generally cleaned up within an hour or 2.

[alturic]

Speak for yourself. I would be greatly annoyed by those.

The good news is that with 17k posts, you would have already passed the captcha, and filled out the profile field(s). This was meant on account registration.

I agree with your post above this however, I don't know why anyone cares about the bot posts.