I understood that recent changes and upgrades to the forum were partly to help with spam. Perhaps they have, but I also notice that spam continues to show up. I was using another forum the other day that has an interesting feature. A member's first N posts require moderator approval before they appear on the forum. Now I certainly don't want to add to our existing moderators' workload so it occurred to me that this task could be delegated to a cadre of assistant moderators. Spam posts are pretty obvious and N could be quite small, even just two or three. The assistants' only authority could be to approve or reject new members' initial posts. These posts would go into a queue where any of the assistants could review them. There are enough regulars on this forum, maintaining an ample team of assistant mods shouldn't be a problem.
There are one or two other details to work out, notably to define the process flow when an assistant rejects a post. I also have no idea what level of effort would be required to implement such changes, so maybe it's not even reasonable. But the moderation and delay inherent in the first few posts might serve as a powerful deterrent so I thought I'd float the idea.
I would hope in this day and age a script could be written that locks a user account and moves the message(s) into a holding pen if x or more people report it as spam then when a moderator logs on they can purge the reported user/posts or unlock/restore them. Alas the moderator still has the hassle of expunging but the spammers damage would be reduced so maybe less cleanup work needed.
I like this suggestion for other reasons:
The first or first N posts, is the perfect time to tell the user if he/she has choosen a bad board for their question, and give guidance on why this is so and how to choose it next time. Also the [code] [/code] can be explained. Crossposting would also be caught, and likewise the URGENT NOOB .... well, frequent posters know what I mean.
Why would they listen more to advice with this than before? Because their post does not get published until they acknowledge !
The work of the auxiliary moderators would be a simple [reject-spam] or [boilerplate about xyz] where xyz is the above very common problems of 1st time posters. So it should be no more than a few cut-n-paste of the usual links (to the GammonStickies, subsections).
It is not meant as an absolute filter, just a little extension to the spam-filter function as Jack suggested to remove some of the obvious 1st post error.
How about a simple system that requires a newcomer with less than (say) 5 posts in other Threads to use the title "Hi, this is my first Thread" when s/he starts her/his first Thread.
That title would be useless to someone trying to advertise something. And the newcomer could edit the title later - after s/he has made 5 or more posts.
It would also allow moderators (or, better, some Forum software) to detect new Threads with greatest risk of being Spam.
Robin2:
How about a simple system that requires a newcomer with less than (say) 5 posts in other Threads to use the title "Hi, this is my first Thread" when s/he starts her/his first Thread.
The only downside will be you cannot describe your problem in the subject header so people will eventually get bored of clicking every "Hi, this is my first Thread" and few if any people will bother reading there new posts after a time.
No, Robin2 is thinking (I think - he can answer for himself ) of that the newbie has to write a one (or more) posts just saying "hello I have just started ...." type pleasantaries. Then (s)he can write a proper question with a proper subject.
Spammers enrol, and start sending adverts. As they do not choose the "magic subject line" for their post they would be automtically blocked. Until they adjust the robots to send the first magic post.
I think Jacks original idea is sound enough. If one leaves out my "enhacement" then basically any newbie and any spammer is just put in the queue. 1st-post-approvers just need to use 2 seconds to look at the post if it is Arduino relevant (they do NOT need to answer, just approve - it then is visible to all) or hit delete (which deletes the post and user).
(Now either I or Jack will follow the link at the bottom on EACH webpage to SimpleMachines documentation to see if it is exensible.)
An even simpler approach that would still catch a significant portion of the spam would just be to filter posts with the word "kitchen" in the subject line, haha!
[quote author=Jack Christensen link=topic=233080.msg1681777#msg1681777 date=1397595225]
An even simpler approach that would still catch a significant portion of the spam would just be to filter posts with the word "kitchen" in the subject line, haha!
"Looking for ideas for projects that let me use my Arduino in the kitchen..."
I'd hate to see that scrubbed as spam.
[/quote]
Riva:
I would hope in this day and age a script could be written that locks a user account and moves the message(s) into a holding pen if x or more people report it as spam then ...
Sorry, too late! The spammer is encouraged. Pre-approval is the only way to effectively discourage spam.
The first essential requirement to avoid spam, which I seem to recall (as it has been a while) is in fact used here, is the necessity to register with an email address and return a token sent to that address. This is a good deterrent to "bots" and whilst an enterprising "human" can get through this hurdle, their email address can subsequently be blacklisted as they are removed.
Riva:
The only downside will be you cannot describe your problem in the subject header so people will eventually get bored of clicking every "Hi, this is my first Thread" and few if any people will bother reading there new posts after a time.
Many of them have crap titles anyway. Having an enforced title may actually make them think about the usefulness of titles.
Until they adjust the robots to send the first magic post
I am assuming the title is important to someone trying to advertise something or trying to get you to click some dodgy link.
Riva:
The only downside will be you cannot describe your problem in the subject header so people will eventually get bored of clicking every "Hi, this is my first Thread" and few if any people will bother reading there new posts after a time.
Many of them have crap titles anyway. Having an enforced title may actually make them think about the usefulness of titles.
True, I don't tend to read threads with non descriptive/crap titles.
Until they adjust the robots to send the first magic post
I am assuming the title is important to someone trying to advertise something or trying to get you to click some dodgy link.
Not always, some titles even have the spam word in them but another more subtle technique I have seen on here is to post a simple smoke blowing post but put the spam URL in the tagline.
) of that the newbie has to write a one (or more) posts just saying "hello I have just started ...." type pleasantaries. Then (s)he can write a proper question with a proper subject.