I was wondering how often this place gets hit with spammers and spambots. How are these two identified also. I imagine once they are they get banned and their IPs are banned too. Was there a worse case scenario...if so, then what... And what does the sciforums do to prevent spam attacks...I'd say they've done a good job so far since I've never seen any spam here ever! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Typically we have a couple of spam posts a week, sometimes less. Plazma/Stryder have some infrastructure in place to detect bots, but still some get through. Typically, unless there is some egregious violation, we don't ban IP's. Notice, for example, how OilIsMastery pops up every so often with another sock puppet.
Originally we did have a script hack that I conjured up in place, however there were a few unfortunate souls that got rejected from joining because they weren't allowing Javascript here. Luckily the forums update remedied that as the forum software now incorporates harsher measures to detect spam, especially automated spam. Obviously we still have a few humans sneak on here trying to pedal their warez. The most notorious are the Chinese guys that keep trying to sell their shoes here. (I don't know why anyone would want to buy their shoes but there you go.) We do try to lock out notorious spam routes but this can be tough if they are on networks that legitimate users use. (Luckily some of the work was cut down when ICANN shut down a rogue ISP.)
not sure I am not a "spammer" or a "spam bot". I make beneficial posts whenever I contribute to a forum, but I also include my link at the end of my post sometimes. This forum requires 20 posts, so I make a beneficial inclusion to the forums content in order to get my piece of mouse cheese. I don't consider that spamming if the content I add benefits the conversation. End of story, and enough is enough. Would you all like somebody watching you all the time. I think not, it's not a nice world when you get down to it. Sam
Sam, You obviously haven't been out of your house in a while. If you've been anywhere with dense population, you might have seen all the CCTV cameras popping up. There is always somebody watching, they might or might not be watching you but the cameras will always be on. Saying that though, we don't scurtinize members unless they happen to be a "Sock Puppet" (Re-emergence of a banned member who's using the same posting patterns and content) or are attempting to force shoes down our necks. They must think we are millipedes or something.
If spam ever became a problem, couldn't the forums establish some sort of probationary system? When you first join you're a newb, you can only make x posts per day each of maximum length y, no images or external urls, etc. etc. Then instead of having full privileges automatically awarded after 20 posts, one of the mods will notice you at some point, or you can contact them, point out the usefulness of your posts, and they will up your posting privileges accordingly. Could also do it by subforum so that troublemakers have somewhere to post their crap without constantly making rubbish posts in Physics and other sections like that.
