When you see those advertisment/spam posts, do not reply to them please. They learn the forum is active from people replying to them. The more you reply, the more they will post. Hopefully we can figure out how to filter them out eventually.
SPAMBOTS - Do not reply to them!
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Yes, DON'T REPLY!
Honestly I don't know what's more annoying, the actual spam/adbots or those people that have to get their equally useless "OMGZWTF1!11 in b4 teh lock LOL" posts in.
Just don't reply, let it drop and if there are no mods currently active, feel free to report it.
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Aaaaand someone didn't listen. Is there any way we can post this in really big freakin' text on every forum?
Spambots = bah
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It's… ugly :x
Sorry, I was planning to do something in year end, but ended up couldn't do it. Hopefully it'll get it done sometime soon ^^
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If only I read this sooner….
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Tweaked something, so it looks a little better than the first tweak :x
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Spambots tend to only post as guests, never making an account… And they always post a link to some site... Perhaps they could be stopped by adding some code that prevents guests from posting links? It's just something one of the other forums I'm on does, and it's completely stopped them.
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@Yalecsa:
Spambots tend to only post as guests, never making an account… And they always post a link to some site... Perhaps they could be stopped by adding some code that prevents guests from posting links? It's just something one of the other forums I'm on does, and it's completely stopped them.
Seems like a good idea to me, coz' those warnings are freaking ugly.
Not that I find the forum layout appealing anyway, but that's a whole other matter.
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guests can't post at all in this forum, by the way.
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I didn't know thats how they worked, I would not have posted in all the spam bots threads I have if I did.
And yeah, all the spambots ARE members.
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LOL good call on the text there, ocean.
Anyway yes, I've been meaning to ask people to do this myself =_=; More so that you're not really being 'cute' when you post in those, we delete them anyway. shrug
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .Credo quia absurdum non credere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Is the obnoxious giant blue text really necessary? The notice was just posted today, and after a single "One person screwed up" message about three hours later, it's apparently required that someone sticks a giant blue eyesore on every page.
The request really should be enough, and since the threads always get deleted anyways, this doesn't seem very productive at all.
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I recommend having a minimum of 50 posts or so to post links, and if it is possible anyone below that will not be able type Http, php, or www, or it says that a filter detected it.
As annoying as it is, unless you are a respected member I doubt anyone would click the links anyways, and it's a bit of a deterrent. Maybe if there was a 20 post minimum for PMs it's be easier to regulate, because anyone who finds spam in their inbox will likely report it then delete it.
It'll rerquire monitering but simple deterrents will help pprevent this, as well a smake it easier to find them.
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can someone tell me…exactly what is a spambot and how it works?
is it an actual person posting or what?
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@Roz:
Is the obnoxious giant blue text really necessary? The notice was just posted today, and after a single "One person screwed up" message about three hours later, it's apparently required that someone sticks a giant blue eyesore on every page.
Don't worry, it won't be there permenantly. Not everyone read the announcements (as proven by people still posting in the threads after it was announced) so it's a fast way to get everyone's attention. ocean has been meaning to do something about the problem for a while but hasn't gotten to it pokes penguin
The request really should be enough, and since the threads always get deleted anyways, this doesn't seem very productive at all.
The threads being deleted doesn't solve the problem, unless they're deleted before anyone posts.
can someone tell me…exactly what is a spambot and how it works?
is it an actual person posting or what?
It can be either automated or a person, or both, it's hard to know which is which.
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explodes
Putting the blue texts is just a fast way to get everyone's attention, since as Cosmic says, not everyone would read the Announcement board (sadly). At least it's not too visible compare to the first time when I sticked those blue texts right above + below the forum banner. Gosh that was ugly.
As mentioned above, I've been meaning to install some plug-in that was suggested by one of the mods (StrawHatLuffy) and I will get to it soon, hopefully.
By the way, I have another forum that had a lot of spams around December, and we got about 5~7 spams per a day, but after no one replied + those threads were deleted, the spam suddenly stopped. So yeah, it's effective… I think.
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I have no problem with the DO NOT REPLY TO SPAM BOTS!!! message, and I think it's necessary, but I think putting it down twice is overdoing it. Also, for someone with my vision problems, it's an eyesore. It sorta merges a bit, and makes the post quick reply button hard to see. I'd appreciate it if you could only put it down once.
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Why's that such a big deal? Sheesh.
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AWB1, if you don't like seeing it twice, you can change your forum's style back to vBulletin's default style (choosable on bottom left of every forum page) until we fix the problem.
Or, you could always hit tab+enter to commit the reply.
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Whoah, ok, Got it, I hear ya loud and clear XD
yes, I am one of those obnoxios people who like to reply to spam bots. I didn't know that it did any harm though. I will stop now that I know.
runs off to see what she missed today
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hmm…. maybe it's just me but
i like the BIG BLUE NOTE above and below the POST QUICK REPLY button.
they show me exactly where to click.
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BUt but…. Phenteremine quick albatross dvnfowaq! :cwy:
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Guess it's no more "Mr. Nice Guy" who have to speak out for the Admin/Mods. Well, because of this spambot rule, I'm done playing "hero".
People just like to post repond to fight spam instend of reporting. I think the big blue text should remaind there forever because if it's taken down, people will start to forget the rule so it's best if it remind there.
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Um ouch-ka-bilbbles then for breaking the future rule the other day then.
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can you ban by range of emails on vbulletin? using wildcards.
that's what i did for our forums.
spambots usually register using very specific email addresses.eg *@bestpricesintheuniverse.com
or *@bysmesomeviagra.comome common one is @10minutemail.com or something like that.
get the idea?
it's a bit like banning them before they even post.
of course if you get a spam bot registering with a hotmail address you're in trouble….you'll need to look up a list of typical spambot email addresses before you ban anything though.
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We did that on some of that until I got lazy.
By the way, Hotmail rejects OUR registration email as spam XD Yeah, so they can't really sign up to this forum with Hotmail. And AOL.
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I wouldn't think the email thing would be very reliable…
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you would be thinking wrong.
the spam bot does not need to check its email to see if it gets a confirmation email.
it takes advantage of security flaws in the forum engine to make posts. so in a way it registered without ever being sent a confirmation email. but it still need to supply a 'valid' email to be able to start posting. 'valid' as in syntactically correct. does not matter if its really exists or not. savvy?we had a spam bot posting porn(and really poor quality at that) back on nbf. we simply banned the first username it registered to. amd it came back with another username. but the email was similar. same @something.com. so we banned the entire email range instead.
never read from the bugger since.
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hyiptats123@bk.ru
galogen@megabox.ru
mail@medicinese.info
loginns@cashette.com
atlas33@sibmail.com
dick@freeservicemail.info
choki1242@mail.ru
adipex@bazehost.info
topmaster@nakedworldcelebrities.com
loginmppm@web.de
datingservices@fuckshemale.net
List continues.… Yeah, I wish our spammers were that nice.
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We banned a wildcard range of some domains, but there's always new ones coming here.
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Wow, yeah.. I'm gonna say the second is what posted that topic full of porn links.
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Hmm… how about you make everyone on the forum a moderator? That way spambot topics can be deleted almost instantly.
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Yeah and delete every other better threads and rewrite someone else's posts? lol.
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Tho, I admit a few more mods would make things easier. I know we already have plenty, but making people like Greg mods would be helpful.
I see people complain on other forums for having too many admin and mods, but really, if they are all trust worthy and do their job greatly what is the problem?
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Do we really need more mods when those spams are actually taken care of within one hour or so? If anything, we'd get new mods to take care of existing members, not for spam bots.
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got a shiver up his spine at the member comment I'll behave. But, yeah. It does get taken care of rather fast. But the spam bots do seem to have a pattern in their posts and such, wish their was something you could do with that.
What's this script you were talking about earlier?
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a desperate solution would be to ask a user to input a confirmation code before submitting a post
y'know. like a hashed piece of text written onto an image file.
another solution. probably better:
since you can insert that blue font font message, you can also add a bit of javascript and some extra form elements, yes?
so here's what you can do, add a check box, or even better, 2 check boxes.
so submit a reply, be it a quick reply or a standard one, the user has to check that box(or uncheck it if you prefer) or at least do some kind of user action on that form item.
with a little bit of javascript, the onsubmit event will return false if no proper action has been take by the user on that check box.
Now normally that would be useless against spambots. Since they don't give bovine fecal matter about reply forms. all they do is scan for active forums on known forum structures. usually for keywords like "general chat" and then just send some post data to the php scripts.
BUT,
the extra form elements imply extra data being sent back to the server. data which the spambot cannot know of since it is not part of the standard vbulletin format.
so after the client side validation with javascrippt, do some server side validation. check the $_POST array for the checkbox data.
something like
if (isset($_POST['checkbocname']))
{
<do the="" actual="" operations="" to="" enter="" post="" data="" in="" database="">;
}It won't prevent spam bots from scanning your board but the double validation should prevent spam posts from going through.
note: I just invented this method. as in i thought it up as i was writing this reply. But i am a pretty good coder so it might actually work.
I don't really know the vbulletin structure but as all largely distributed php boards, there should be a way to include those modification in a plugin form. so that it will keep working even with an upgrade.
but still, you should add all the emails addresses ranges of known spambots that have visited your forum. just to be safe. Being an admin is never easy.
and yeah. if you ever think of implementing what i suggested, please give me proper credit and stuff. 'kay?</do>
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Spam bots will probably still continue to post spam, even if you dont reply to them. Some spam bots' main purpose is to look for inactive forums where their link can sit there and be picked up by google. An inactive post adds a link in, increasing their google rank. Deleting them as soon as possible is probably your best bet.
I guess it depends on the bots that are posting though. The ones on my forum continue to post, even if we delete them right away.
If you get your idea working, post it up in here. I'd be very interested in seeing it work.
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I've had a lot of spam bots signing upto my site but i've got this installed, so though they join they can't actually post
Go me and with one click installation, go AP too.
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@Cuu:
If you get your idea working, post it up in here. I'd be very interested in seeing it work.
it's not up to me. I'm just a regular user here.
I'll probably implement it on my own forum though. but we don't that much of a spam bot infestation.
but if that is a new idea, i certainly wouldn't mind having me name cited in the credit bit for that code…
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The script sabre posted would be our best and easiest bet.
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Thanks, ketwaroo, for all those suggestions, but we already have plan in our mind. We just need time. For anyone wanting to know, this is what we are trying out. As mentioned earlier, those two lines of blue text is only a temporary solution. We are aware of the plugin that sabret00the posted as well, but I don't remember if we were gonna use it or not.
Either way, I want to update the forum to the latest version before installing the plugins. (vB released updated version one or two days after I updated the forum last time -__-)
Thanks for you guys' patience.
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O come on, people work really hard on creating those shitty spam bots, we should give them a chance, maybe we could grow to love them, like a distant Uncle who turns up for your weddings naked.
You all know that one day you'll be in need of those penis patches and then you'll be sorry!
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Can I give you some spanking to show my love, BB?
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My god, that's creepy.
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Don't look directly at him, Zulen.
Can't wait for the new version, hope the forum isn't down long.
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^ Fricken awesome.
 