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Bot posts

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:22 pm
by Synch
We seem to be getting some of these every few days now. I really don't understand the point of them, why would people use bots to create two insignificant posts in old threads and not advertise anything?

Anyway, perhaps we could put an authentification image on the forum signup. Y'know, enter the characters you see to verify you're human etc.

Re: Bot posts

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:45 pm
by SeeAMoose
Yeah, I just set up Recaptcha, we'll see whether it's any more effective. We didn't have much luck with Captcha in the past, but we'll see.

Re: Bot posts

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:57 am
by gamecreator
IIRC, Stop Forum Spam is quite effective. There is a mod for phpBB.

Re: Bot posts

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:02 am
by M0rtimer
Yeah, we've been noticing it ourselves and working on things that might prevent them from happening. There's only so much we can do though, since the perpetrators are likely hiding behind a proxy. Luckily things aren't too bad, though obviously if they were we'd resort to stronger methods.

Re: Bot posts

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:36 am
by Krulle
From my point of view this forum is close to spam-free.
Far from being annoying.

Another forum-community I participate in has more spam posts than actual posts. (It's not a very active community)

Re: Bot posts

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 2:41 am
by M0rtimer
Yeah, we know - I myself think it's far from "bad" myself, but doesn't mean we shouldn't try and stop it before it even starts, to not end up in the same situation. In general though, spam is gone pretty quickly as it's swiftly deleted upon being posted. The thing that puzzles me most is that how most of these spam posts don't actually seem to contain any links.

Re: Bot posts

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:04 am
by SeeAMoose
I think they're just hoping to slip them through and then edit in the spam later. We'll see what my latest action does to affect the incoming spam.