OccultForum.org

Dear moderators, I have just come back to the forum after having been away for a while and it is getting really difficult to maneuver here as there are so many spam posts, any potential new member will have a good chance to be turned of from the forum because of all the spam, in some of the categories almost all the threads on the first page are spam, there also seam to be a few accounts, with quite a number of posts which are pure spambots. I know cleaning up the forum is allot of work, but if you want my advice the work would be well worth it as not to be mean but right now the forum look a bit like a disaster area.

There is a lot of spam surfacing (although I must say it is being cleared up rather efficiently) and I had an idea about a possible form of preemption by playing on the superstitions of people. Now I doubt it will scare all spammers away, but I am sure it will do the trick for a sizable number.

The idea is an adaptation of a story my Sangoma friend told me:
A few years ago he was busy building himself a new house and got 3 young guys from the village nearby to help him. He had got a new cellphone and it mysteriously disappeared when these young men were helping him. Knowing that it must have been one of them, he decided against direct confrontation. He went down to the edge of the village in his skins and beads and brought a shaker with him. He put some stones in a circle, made a fire and danced around it for a while with the shaker waiting to draw attention from nearby villagers. A bunch gathered a distance away and after a while a few more inquisitive villagers went up to him and asked what he was doing. He said that his cellphone had been stolen and his ancestors had told him that it was nearby. He told them that he was asking his ancestors to help bring his phone back.
He danced around for a little while longer, then left.

The following day his cell phone was on his doorstep.

I guess I would call this magick, but a more witty form.

My suggestion is some kind of disclaimer, big bright and absolutely unavoidable, threatening some form of voodoo or at least something that will resonate in most people's minds, against anyone who litters the place with spam (possibly at the point of registration). Don't need to actively do anything. Just threaten. Let their minds do the magicz [clown] .
Not sure about the legality of such a thing??? but I think it should keep some of the beasties at bay.

I actually send my allies after one of the spammers.

Don't we use CAPTCHA?

There's a captcha on registration but not for posting, it doesn't stop them. There are hundreds of services willing to crack captchas, some for free, some for an extremely competitive rate.

I will have a look and see if there's a phpbb plugin that will require captchas on a user's first, say 10 or 20 posts.... Will keep you updated here.

Vashta wrote:There's a captcha on registration but not for posting, it doesn't stop them. There are hundreds of services willing to crack captchas, some for free, some for an extremely competitive rate.

I will have a look and see if there's a phpbb plugin that will require captchas on a user's first, say 10 or 20 posts.... Will keep you updated here.

Did you want me to help you with this?

I did have a look into this one, there aren't any plugins that will require captcha for new users (plus, the spambots that are getting through are getting past a captcha registering). One option is moderating a user's first X many posts, but that could be confusing for new members trying to post a message that they're looking for a fairly quick response to, and new members would have to wait for a moderator to come on and approve their posts...

What do you guys think? Moderator approval for your first 5 posts, or is that going too far?

And akimbomoss: feel free ^_^

I am around at least 4 times a day,5am then 9am ish and again at around 13.30 and 1900 onwards in the evening.I don't mind approving posts,but
I do think it's a bit hassleworthy for members,as you've pointed out Vashta.
Might be a good option for now,though in the last week or so I 've not had to can any spam,what about you or Dodaive?

I check out the site about four times a day, no I haven't seen any spam in about 5 days you can check the moderator log though, hope it lasts.

I think one of my allies ate them lol!

I think you would need more moderators for approving posts rather than mods for deleting spam. I haven't seen spam last very long, if it is an issue additional mod(s) could be selected simply for removing spam.