All off topic discussions go here. Everything from the funny thing your cat did to your favorite tv shows. Non-programming computer questions are ok too.
Chase@OSDev wrote:
EDIT: I don't think a lot of people realize how bad the spam is here simply because the mods are so active and spend so much time cleaning things up. I know on more then one occasion I've refreshed my browser and seen spam here and by the time I tried to view the thread it was already deleted. I wish I could turn my email accounts into a forum that the MT mods were in charge of
Same thing that I read this forum about 5 times a day, or about 15 times on free days (today for example) and just about every time I check there's a spam post waiting. Occasionally two. You don't want us moderating your email btw, I get about 80 a day since I put my email address public here (yes it's my real email address) (and yes, I do check it for false positives, but you'll have to wait for up to a few weeks if you happen to end up there).
Thinking about it, could we move the General Programming forum to be #8 and add a new forum called Spam on #1? I think they're just programmed to post at a given forum number (every forum has one, so it's safe to spam).
That's not a bad idea actually, you could even hide the board, just make it visible to mods and unregistered users (should be able to set those permissions in most software). You could be one of the few boards that has a forum that guests can see but registered users can't, lol.
Kemp wrote:
That's not a bad idea actually, you could even hide the board, just make it visible to mods and unregistered users (should be able to set those permissions in most software). You could be one of the few boards that has a forum that guests can see but registered users can't, lol.
If I'm correct, you don't have to make it visible on the front page to anybody, just make the URL work. Bots don't look at the page to figure out which forum to spam, they just use URL's and post messages that worked on their test forum.
True, I was working on the assumption that you had to have permission to see a forum in order to have permission to post to a forum, forgetting of course that most forum software allows completely illogical (though useful) combinations of permissions.
I agree that disabling guest posting doesn't help much; many of the spam posts are by logged-in users, or I wouldn't ask for a delete-user-with-post feature.
If you consider this for the new forum, however, make sure that persistent logins (cookies) are working. If I would have to log in every time I want to make a post, or even delete a spam, I'd be fed up pretty fast.
Every good solution is obvious once you've found it.
Ah, spam ... yesterday, I've lurked the forum (yeah, I'm more lurking than posting these days) and suddenly I've seen all those posts about nonsense in the OSDEV Forum.
I've got a big hankering for admin privileges in that very moment my eyes fell upon that spam, just to get rid of it. for god's sake, there's the report to mod button.
BTW: persistent login - that's a VERY important feature. I don't want to be bothered with login stuff for every post I wanna make.
Well I activated the email random password when registering feature. Hopefully that will stop those bots that where posting the spam messages. But if the bots are smart enough to read emails... then it won't help. :-\
Just moved one spam to off-topic that was from a guest that also limited it to 2 links and included plain-text that made some form of sense. I'm not sure whether we're anywhere close near the limit of them.
All is still being posted in general programming though (afaik), so if we could perform that swap without making it too clear that the board is for spam posters, that could help...
I'd rather those jokes were provided by the regulars here in a dedicated thread; instead of moderators carefully stripping the spam from a post, moving it to Off-Topic, and the board bearing an individual thread per "joke".
I'll continue to delete spam threads outright. That's only two clicks, as opposed to half a dozen clicks and a text edit.
Every good solution is obvious once you've found it.
oi... I'd rather you didn't, you know why. It raises the bar (combined with activating password mailing) to a level where some people rather think "don't care, will try next forum".
