November 22, 2015 at 8:15 am
Seems like there was a lot of spam today on recent posts. It's been like this for a while now.
I know it's not easy maintaining a large robust community as this one, but after going through the registration process again, there is no type of captcha system in place or anything to stop bots. You register with an email, wait for the link, click the link and you have a account after setting your password.
Can we put in a validation of user or use one of the captcha plugins for the forums to help reduce the spam? If not, then why?
November 23, 2015 at 9:11 am
We don't want a captcha as people are mostly registered when they post. It's an annoyance for many, and perhaps might not prevent replies from spammers.
I suspect there's a hole in the forums somewhere that allows posts without the account being completely valid. We've tried banning people, but sometimes posts slip through.
Really this is an issue for a few people that monitor forums or active threads. I realize it's annoying. It bothers me, too, and we have systems in place that do go through and hide spam posts. This works well, and we continually feed through posts and patterns.
The people that seem most affected are those that respond extremely quickly to spam posts in a forum.
I have raised this as a flag, and am working to get some additional measures in place.
November 23, 2015 at 9:16 am
xsevensinzx (11/22/2015)
Can we put in a validation of user or use one of the captcha plugins for the forums to help reduce the spam? If not, then why?
Captchas don't work well and annoy regular users more than anything.
http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/189455/how-can-robots-beat-captchas (2 years ago)
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
November 25, 2015 at 9:41 am
I've suggested this before, but I'll do so again as the spam is driving me mad at the moment.
1) Apply additional rules to new users (< 100 posts, say)
Additional Rules (apply these before the message or thread gets posted)
a) If the subject contains http or https --> straight to bin.
b) (This could be applied universally, I suspect) Limit the number of new threads per day. Even 10 sounds excessive, maybe 5.
2) Allow trusted users, across different time-zones, to ban spammers with a couple of clicks.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
- Martin Rees
The absence of consumable DDL, sample data and desired results is, however, evidence of the absence of my response
- Phil Parkin
May 19, 2016 at 8:18 am
Would it be possible to limit posts based on the number of visits? I noticed that most of the spam comes from people with 1 or 2 visits. If we set the threshold as low as 3 visits, we might be able to reduce the number of spam posts.
Drew
J. Drew Allen
Business Intelligence Analyst
Philadelphia, PA
May 19, 2016 at 8:43 am
Phil Parkin (11/25/2015)
I've suggested this before, but I'll do so again as the spam is driving me mad at the moment.1) Apply additional rules to new users (< 100 posts, say)
Additional Rules (apply these before the message or thread gets posted)
a) If the subject contains http or https --> straight to bin.
b) (This could be applied universally, I suspect) Limit the number of new threads per day. Even 10 sounds excessive, maybe 5.
2) Allow trusted users, across different time-zones, to ban spammers with a couple of clicks.
This isn't as easy as expected. First, most people don't put an http or https in the subject. That's an easy win, but one thing we've learned is that if we blanketly remove those, they try something else. Right now we get lots of subjects that aren't related to anything, but then a link.
Limiting new threads per day is possible, but I'm not sure we see a lot of threads from the same account. Since I've cleaned a lot manually, most are similar names, but altered accounts.
It's maddening for sure.
May 19, 2016 at 8:44 am
drew.allen (5/19/2016)
Would it be possible to limit posts based on the number of visits? I noticed that most of the spam comes from people with 1 or 2 visits. If we set the threshold as low as 3 visits, we might be able to reduce the number of spam posts.Drew
Meaning someone with 1 or 2 visits can't post? Most of those people do ask questions, surprisingly.
May 19, 2016 at 9:45 am
This sounds like a Big Data project, to find things that spam postings have in common, but not legitimate posts.
May 19, 2016 at 9:47 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (5/19/2016)
drew.allen (5/19/2016)
Would it be possible to limit posts based on the number of visits? I noticed that most of the spam comes from people with 1 or 2 visits. If we set the threshold as low as 3 visits, we might be able to reduce the number of spam posts.Drew
Meaning someone with 1 or 2 visits can't post? Most of those people do ask questions, surprisingly.
Have to agree with Steve. I have seen people post valid questions on their first visit to ssc.
May 19, 2016 at 1:12 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (5/19/2016)
drew.allen (5/19/2016)
Would it be possible to limit posts based on the number of visits? I noticed that most of the spam comes from people with 1 or 2 visits. If we set the threshold as low as 3 visits, we might be able to reduce the number of spam posts.Drew
Meaning someone with 1 or 2 visits can't post? Most of those people do ask questions, surprisingly.
Yes. The question, which may be impossible to determine, is how many legitimate users vs spammers won't return when faced with this restriction (especially when the reason for the restriction is explained). Also, of those people who post on their first visit, how many become active users?
Three visits is not a terribly high bar to set. There is even a thread on whether the posted questions are getting worse. Perhaps setting the bar slightly higher will weed out those people (such as those who are looking for homework answers), too. Would that be such a terrible thing?
Drew
J. Drew Allen
Business Intelligence Analyst
Philadelphia, PA
May 19, 2016 at 1:24 pm
I still think a specific set of volunteers here should be given a whack-a-mole functionality, which has been suggested ad-nauseam, but I think it's hard for red-gate to dedicate a web dev resource to add that kind of functionality, with all the other things they have going on.
Lowell
May 19, 2016 at 2:24 pm
It is hard to get resources to make changes. Adding users to moderate is something we don't take lightly, especially since most of you are quicker to whack things you don't like than I prefer. I could have people put things in a hidden mode, but I don't have an easy way to review those, which is a pain. Plus, I have to add you to each forum. No groups here. (crappy forum architecture).
I did spend a bit of time looking at the patterns and tried to identify some things that I can try to handle in the DB side, no front end work needed, but it's not simple.
I'll describe the problem more later, but a bit busy now. I have been trying to escalate this as work that needs to change. Part of the issue is we have only a few people that can make changes, and this is low priority. some also need good direction, not just "make less spam".
If it's too much, I'd suggest that you not monitor forums, but rather come back periodically to look at active threads and answer those. The spam filter does work pretty well, but it's after the post is made, not as it's being made.
May 19, 2016 at 2:41 pm
What about charging a one-time small fee to be a user of SQLServerCentral.com? Something like $2? (Or whatever the minimum charge would have to be to break even on the transaction charge you'd have to pay)
The Redneck DBA
May 19, 2016 at 3:45 pm
TheRedneckDBA (5/19/2016)
What about charging a one-time small fee to be a user of SQLServerCentral.com? Something like $2? (Or whatever the minimum charge would have to be to break even on the transaction charge you'd have to pay)
My guess is no one will do this. Or at least, very few.
Before RG owned the site we toyed with this. Couldn't ever justify it. While we might make some $$ from people that see value, few would pay the $2 even as a one time fee to ask a question or read an article.
May 19, 2016 at 11:02 pm
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (11/23/2015)
This works well, and we continually feed through posts and patterns.
Actually, it doesn't. I've been hiding a lot of the obvious SPAM/reported spam whenever I'm on and the SPAM is usually hours old by the time I get on.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
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