Soft ban for mods to keep spam bots at bay

[TCD]

The recent update by RCK that introduced new methods to keep the spam bots outside is not working very well . There must be very clever programmed bots out there that it will be nearly impossible to keep them away with just automatic methods.
My question is if 'normal' mods should have the right to temporary ban users (spam bots). When a bot occurs there is most of the time a mod active, so it would be IMHO very effective.
What do you think about it?

[Zetr0]

hmmm there are some captcha updates for vbulliten, perhaps some of those could be considered.

[DrBong]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

The recent update by RCK that introduced new methods to keep the spam bots outside is not working very well

That's a bit of an understatement (no disrespect to you RCK if you're reading). Probably best to revert to the methods used before the update (if possible) until something better can be implemented. They weren't foolproof, but at least we didn't get the rampant bot spamming that we're seeing right now. Would be less burden for the mods too I imagine. My 2c.

[Retro1234]

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[BippyM]

Currently I remove any spam I notice and perm-ban the poster.. though going on this way, the number of banned users will outweigh the number of active members

[TCD]

@bippym : What do you think about 'normal' mods freezing the account to limit the number of posts a spam bot could make? Better captchas and other methods should be applied too, but it's like the cold war : any new captcha will be cracked someday

[BippyM]

I think mods should be able to temp ban a suspected spammer and then a global mod or rck can then check and perm ban etc..

I don't know if VB has this ability though (To allow mods to ban just users suspected of spamming)

[Galahad/FLT]

I wouldn't mind some mod access as i'm on here anytime I like now i have a PC at work. So frustrating to see these tossers spamming, and i'm there watching it happening!

[BippyM]

Galahad hinting

[Ian]

You should be able to ban people through the modcp if RCK allows all mods to access it.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Ian

You should be able to ban people through the modcp if RCK allows all mods to access it.

That are good news. Thank you for the information Ian!

[BippyM]

I think only global mods+ can ban

[Graham Humphrey]

I think RCK should make all normal mods global mods... that would be fun

[Galahad/FLT]

Alternatively, new members can only post in one section, a section to introduce new members, that way, they can't keep spamming the whole damned board.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by bippym

Galahad hinting

Yup

[TCD]

Originally Posted by bippym

Galahad hinting

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Yup

Second that
Galahad for mod!

[Ian]

Originally Posted by bippym

I think only global mods+ can ban

Only because that's all RCK currently allows.

One of the problems might be that one of the answers for one of the questions is EAB.

I only have one question set for registration "please type I am not a spambot in the box below"

It stopped them all dead.

[Marcuz]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Alternatively, new members can only post in one section, a section to introduce new members, that way, they can't keep spamming the whole damned board.

i thought the same but there are problems:
many new members sign in just for to have some problem solved, and there's no point in do that if not everybody else can read their posts. even if they would like to say hello only, people should be able to interact not just the mods; therefore the post would compare as usual in the "new/today" area and if they were spam they would be readable by all. not much different from now, just the spam would be, so to speak, in one basket only.

so i second the possibility to make invisible / soft delete for all the mods

[alexh]

Wouldn't it take 10 minutes script work to add a custom question to the registration process? Something unique that it will never guess??

Q. Who originally manufactured the Amiga? A. "Commodore"?

99.99% of spammers are not going to tweak their spambots for just one site. Are they? As soon as you customise even a tiny bit of the standard BBS registration template you should defeat ALL bots. No?

[TCD]

Hi alexh,

the custom question is already there :



Seems that did not help