Suggestion Limiting new users to 1 thread, then a cooldown timer. We also need more staff

The Catboy · Apr 22, 2024

Newbies need to be limited to being only able to make 1 thread then a cooldown. This kind of spam is making the forums a mess

Reporting them isn’t enough to deal with them when it honestly shouldn’t happen in the first place. A new user shouldn’t be allowed to completely spam the forums with nothing slowing them down. My suggestion is that just as the title says, limit them to 1 thread then add a cooldown before they can make another thread. This cooldown could honestly be whatever time the staff feels would be helpful, I think 15-30 minutes is a pretty decent time frame.

I also think there needs to be more staff members. The fact that we often only see 1 to 2 staff online while the forums are being spammed sucks. Maybe add low level staff that only does spam bot clean up? Just something to deal with the fact that the site is constantly being spammed.

Seriously, this is all of the spam being posted during the time of writing this post and after this thread was made

AkikoKumagara · Apr 24, 2024

Eh, I've just been reporting it as I see it. It's usually dealt with rather quickly, though it does suck that it pushes down legitimate new posts temporarily.

nWo · Apr 24, 2024

Hey, I totally second this.

ian0 · Apr 24, 2024

before new users can make any new threats
they should leave 5 to 10 comments first

Costello · Apr 24, 2024

ian0 said:
before new users can make any new threats
they should leave 5 to 10 comments first

That can be a major annoyance to users who register to post a legitimate question - and this happens a lot.

We will keep fighting spam but we won't be resorting to dumb options such as blocking new users altogether or charging them a fee :rolleyes:

Maximumbeans · Apr 24, 2024

The Catboy said:
To be fair, the Temp is run by actual competent people. I do trust whatever does come of this, it will be more than anything Twitter is doing.

I don't know why they even pretend at having moderation anymore. I reported somebody the other day whose pinned post was 'n*****s suck' with attached images of random black people.

Two days later: 'This person hasn't broken our policies.'

:wacko:

p1ngpong · Apr 24, 2024

To respond more seriously than I did before, I have been a member here for 16 years and spam has always been a problem. The measures we have now to combat it is lightyears ahead of what we had when I first joined but the problem is pretty much the same. As people have said previously the issue is we are not dealing with bots we are dealing with people. People in third world countries being paid pennies to spam sites like this, twitter, facebook etc as a living. It is a whole dark industry where people even go into offices every day to do this sort of thing.

Nothing you implement will eliminate the spam because you are dealing with humans. Falling short of charging people money or severely crippling a new users experience of the site. First impressions are important, a bad initial user experience will lead to someone never coming back. There are not many sites like the Temp left catering to our niche, the majority have perished. We need to make sure that we do not cause the sites decline by being too obsessed with eliminating the spam issue.

Honestly though I think this is being blown out of proportion to an extent. I remember spam being a lot more horrid in terms of what it actually was back in the day. Now it is mainly just scams and advertising.Which although not nice to see is easy to ignore, just hit the report button and move on.

The Catboy · Apr 24, 2024

p1ngpong said:
To respond more seriously than I did before, I have been a member here for 16 years and spam has always been a problem. The measures we have now to combat it is lightyears ahead of what we had when I first joined but the problem is pretty much the same. As people have said previously the issue is we are not dealing with bots we are dealing with people. People in third world countries being paid pennies to spam sites like this, twitter, facebook etc as a living. It is a whole dark industry where people even go into offices every day to do this sort of thing.

Nothing you implement will eliminate the spam because you are dealing with humans. Falling short of charging people money or severely crippling a new users experience of the site. First impressions are important, a bad initial user experience will lead to someone never coming back. There are not many sites like the Temp left catering to our niche, the majority have perished. We need to make sure that we do not cause the sites decline by being too obsessed with eliminating the spam issue.

Honestly though I think this is being blown out of proportion to an extent. I remember spam being a lot more horrid in terms of what it actually was back in the day. Now it is mainly just scams and advertising.Which although not nice to see is easy to ignore, just hit the report button and move on.

I do not believe my suggestion would stop spam, that’s not doable. I just don’t think newbies should be allowed to make thread after thread without a cooldown. And that they shouldn’t be allowed to spam preexisting threads without a reasonable cooldown. I think a reasonable cooldown period until something like 10-20 posts wouldn’t be too much to ask for. Spam will happen but it won’t get nearly as bad as it gets. I have yet to be convinced as to why a cooldown would be a bad thing. I’ve also not been convinced that newbies should be allowed to spam the forums.

KingVamp · Apr 25, 2024

As I mention before, is there no way to stop threads being made with the same title over and over again?

Bladexdsl · Apr 25, 2024

the problem with that is the little shits don't use the same title thread over and over again. they are even disguising the thread titles now. they still don't fool me though I'll ninja dat report button

DragonMals · Apr 25, 2024

I too also noticed the lack of mods.

sarkwalvein · Apr 27, 2024

Can't you create some kind of degraded lower responsibility class of moderator.
Something like "Spam Flagger" or whatever, someone that has a "report" button on steroids.

Users which have been granted this "power" could mark a given user (or thread) as spam.
The user/thread will then be automatically reported for later review by a real moderator.

All threads from the given user will be then marked as "Spam Flagged" (also newly created ones) and will immediately be hidden from the recent content list, not deleted but hidden. Also if somebody directly access one such thread it would be tagged as "Flagged as Spam" (so one can easily avoid them, perhaps filter them out as an option).

After later review by a real moderator, the user/thread will either be dealt with (banned?) or the "Flagged as Spam" tag will be removed from their user content. Any user that has been granted the "Spam Flagger" power will be penalized if he abuses it (as in removing that power e.g.).

I believe this would be such a low responsibility "power" it could be given to many users without causing big problems. And it would make moderators life easier.

PS: I just got annoyed after seeing the 5000th new thread about selling fake medicine via WhatsApp. Also, if it is such a low-effort low responsibility "power" I would take it, I guess most regulars here would accept such a low effort task.

linuxares · Apr 27, 2024

Xenforo don't have something like that @sarkwalvein sadly

linuxares · Apr 27, 2024

Just for a sneakpeak and you realise even how many spammers that get by (Often freaking hired people...) the amount that gets blocked and await approval is like 10x that.

For example:

SylverReZ · Apr 28, 2024

linuxares said:
Just for a sneakpeak and you realise even how many spammers that get by (Often freaking hired people...) the amount that gets blocked and await approval is like 10x that.

For example:

View attachment 434142

All of the e-mails are 'temporary', and are linked to temp-mail(.)org. There are people out there who offer services to spam these forums, and even perform 'credential stuffing' attacks on members who have been here for way longer to advertise their crypto pyramid schemes.

shaunj66 · May 2, 2024

Costello has made some changes to the spam filters and hopefully and without jinxing it we have seen less spam since. I'd appreciate feedback regarding this.

Bladexdsl · May 2, 2024

must be working i haven't seen spam for nearly a week

Post automatically merged: May 3, 2024

spoke too soon...

KleinesSinchen · May 7, 2024

Spam amount has decreased a lot – at least for now. Fewer garbage accounts, a lot less spam threads.

The best (worst?) one was the "Google approved abortion pills" (WTF)… and I forgot to screenshot it.

GhostLatte · May 7, 2024

#MakeVanMasterAMod2024

The Catboy · Friday at 3:50 AM

shaunj66 said:
Costello has made some changes to the spam filters and hopefully and without jinxing it we have seen less spam since. I'd appreciate feedback regarding this.

Although they have been greatly reduced, I am still standing by my suggestion of limiting the threads newbies can make through a cooldown and adding a cooldown between posts for newbies. I still feel like there’s no good reason for new accounts to be able to spam threads
I want to stress that I do not agree with any suggestions such as charging for a first post, closing off to new users, stopping newbies from making threads, or anything like that. Just a cooldown between threads/posts for accounts under 10 posts. I really don’t appreciate that people have taken my suggestion in bad faith and added to it.

Kioku · Friday at 3:58 AM

The Catboy said:
Although they have been greatly reduced, I am still standing by my suggestion of limiting the threads newbies can make through a cooldown and adding a cooldown between posts for newbies. I still feel like there’s no good reason for new accounts to be able to spam threads
I want to stress that I do not agree with any suggestions such as charging for a first post, closing off to new users, stopping newbies from making threads, or anything like that. Just a cooldown between threads/posts for accounts under 10 posts. I really don’t appreciate that people have taken my suggestion in bad faith and added to it.

New accounts should not be able to make more than 'x' amount of threads in 'y' amount of time. If they create an account to ask a question, that is more than welcome. Comments/posts should be time gated as well. It doesn't even have to be a ludicrous length of time, either. This way, we are not preventing them from interacting with the community and spam is cut down, further.

The suggested notion of "paid" entry is absolutely ridiculous and anyone who suggested that should probably log off for a bit. That ain't right.

Suggestion Limiting new users to 1 thread, then a cooldown timer. We also need more staff

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