Sorry for the extra spam being served up

[Cassin]

1. we've made some Chinese spammer mad

2. We have our "word capture" kind of lose during registration. Having one that is both restrictive and rather fool proof hurts our English as a second language posters ability to register. Those things are hard enough as it is to read and I can't imagine trying to do one for another language myself.

Someone suggested a simple math problem one that is easy to read and I actually like that idea the more I think about it. Like..."whats 1 + 2"

So...any suggestions I would love to hear it.

 

[Ori83]

(off topic: "fool proof" and "full proof" is the same meaning? sorry im not native, i tried to look it at the dictionary)

 

[Cassin]

(off topic: "fool proof" and "full proof" is the same meaning? sorry im not native, i tried to look it at the dictionary)

FYI----I should have made it "foolproof"

"Foolproof" is the correct way.

"Fullproof" is wrong, but its one of those errors that's is made so often its almost a part of the language.

 

[cuebald]

can you disable links for posters with fewer than 5 posts?
in my work I had to filter out all of China's IP ranges with IP geo-lookup as the spam was getting too bad (we rarely get correspondence from outside the UK)

 

[chore boy]

You could always ask them a question about a website they aren't allowed access to, i.e. YouTube.

 

[Cassin]

can you disable links for posters with fewer than 5 posts?

It would kill the Tell your story section

 

[somone uk]

there wouldn't be much of a language barrier if you asked "1+2 = "
other good moves would be for example to ban certain buzzwords from a users first post (ones typical to spam)

unfortunately if this spammer is determined then it'll be simply our forums against his bots over and over again

 

[Cassin]

We did block china once...might have to do that again.

 

[Cassin]

can you disable links for posters with fewer than 5 posts?
in my work I had to filter out all of China's IP ranges with IP geo-lookup as the spam was getting too bad (we rarely get correspondence from outside the UK)

Actually you know...Poland is a problem now...haha....seriously. Not just China anymore.

 

[Cassin]

Just please hit the "report post button" and don't make any comments on the thread. It will make my job so much easier and I will get it faster.

I don't mind the pain in the ***...seriously I cannot thank you all enough.

 

[Ori83]

seriously I cannot thank you all enough.

:grouphug:

 

[Cassin]

Holy spam batman....I just experienced a wave of what you are talking about..


Why couldn't you require multiple easy "word captures" with finfighter's suggestion?

Because the moment we do that we will have a ton of people who have trouble making accounts who don't read English well.

But I am close to IP Banning China and Poland for a few weeks. lol....hate to do it but holy sh*t.

Its one dude who got pissed off who is doing this I think. He got pissed because I wouldn't let him advertise his wedding gown business here for free. So weird.

 

[Cassin]

haha

 

[Ori83]

isnt there like a data base of simple questions that you can upload, and then pop a q randomly when someone creates an account?

 

[Cassin]

Well....this wave will pass so I don't think it will last too much longer. Such things come and go. We have had months without a single piece of spam.

 

[Ori83]

cassin, whats up with that avatar picture?

 

[Cassin]

cassin, whats up with that avatar picture?

hah....just makes me laugh.

 

[Cassin]

Alright...

I tracked down a lot of the spam...should be lessoning after a week or so.

Seems most of it is coming from http://www.163.com/

I did a wild card ban of any emails registering from @163.com from this point on. All of this over wedding dresses....lol

 

[Cassin]

Spam is slowing to a crawl. I got it narrowed down.