SPAM!
TappedOut forum
Posted on Dec. 6, 2013, 2:31 a.m. by Unforgivn_II
Since I've been seeing a good amount of spam in the forums recently, I'm proposing that we have a waiting period for new users to make forum posts. It doesn't have to be ridiculous, even an hour or two should be enough to stop the bots from doing what they do.
Thoughts?
Blizzicane says... #3
Yes it should be possible to do such as thing considering that new accounts can't make trades until later. Another option would be to assign a few chosen members of the tappedout community to have the powers to move and delete threads. Unless some members already have that power I am unaware of besides Epochalyptik yeaGO!
December 6, 2013 2:38 a.m.
I am kinda getting tired of those too. And people who don't post on the right forums; I don't even have the responsibility to correct those and I still get a little bothered.
The whole limits thing reminds me of the GameFAQs forums, where there's a level-up system that gives you more capabilities the more active you are. It's doing its bit of good on that site.
Anyways, I totally support anything that would streamline the site, but not necessarily "penalize" anyone.
December 6, 2013 2:41 a.m.
Well I'll be damned, log back on after cooking dinner and boom. As for this "level up" idea I don't oppose it perse, but I wouldn't want newer members to not want to stay around or feel like they can't do sh*t because they're new and to not feel welcomed. I'm also for having select individuals having the ability to at least "mark as spam" that way it could hide it from the site until an admin can later deal with it?
December 6, 2013 3:16 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
I pitched a couple ideas to yeaGO! and the others.
December 6, 2013 4:28 a.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #7
I strongly object against giving everybody the possibility to mark posts or threads as spam. It's not only easy to abuse, but would also attract trolls that mark anything and everything as spam, defeating its own purpose.
Leveling systems are also a good way to ruin a forum. A ranking is okay, but once more posts give users benefits, pandora's box has been opened, and not even hope remains.
It would be better to display a card image at random and query the user for a randomly picked information about the card, like power, cmc or color before the post (not preview!) button can be pressed. The database is already there, and it would be a really cool MtG style interpretation of the captcha principle without annoying blurred text.
December 6, 2013 11:01 a.m.
Just use good captcha during registration. Bots don't get past that, and they never even get registered.
December 6, 2013 11:12 a.m.
@Triforce-Finder Strongly object to giving them the ability to mark posts as spam? The abuses are TRIVIALLY easy to stop: The site logs the account that pushed the button. If you push the button for things that aren't spam, your account gets banned. Make it an upgraded only feature, and you've got people who had to pay money to be able to flag threads risking their account (which doesn't get a refund or any compensation) getting banned if they flag things that aren't spam.
Not sure there's any reason to strongly object.
December 6, 2013 11:24 a.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #10
@ Devonin
Uhm, yeah. Why use a simple control mechanism when you can use one that needs another control mechanism to prevent abuse. But I'm sure you would really like the mark spam feature, or why would you react like that to my objection?
Also, the result of your countermeasures would be that accidental misclickers get banned and trolls claim to be accidental misclickers. You probably know a way to tell them apart, i don't. Talking about telling things apart, who is to decide what is spam and what isn't? Where do you draw the line? At slight OT? At someone wasting a whole post for a joke? When someone repeats something that has been said before? And can you punish people for drawing the line in a different place than you? Just in case you wanted to say yes: No, you can't. Punishment can never prevent trouble, it just makes it less attractive, and usually causes more bad than good. It's better to use a mechanism that doesn't offer the opportunity of abuse in the first place.
Finally, marking spam happens after it has annoyed people, at least the one that marked it and all non-premium user before him. Time limits and "I'm human" queries prevent bots from spamming in the first place, eliminating the whole problem completely at the roots.
December 6, 2013 11:49 a.m.
I'm fine to implement anti-bot measures for the site. They don't work as well as you think they do. There are whole warehouses in China and South Korea employing people full-time to do nothing but bypass captcha and other 'I'm human' measures.
Those in tandem with in-site flagging/marking measures are the most effective overall in preventing spam from hanging around a long time.
There aren't extra measures on the measures. You have a "Mark this post as spam" button, when you click it, a pop up comes up that says "Are you SURE you want to mark this as spam?"
And the way that it notifies the admins that it was clicked says "So-and-so marked 'link to page' as spam" it'll be pretty obvious if somebody is trolling by flagging a ton of perfectly fine things.
December 6, 2013 12:05 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #12
I don't advocate ever giving users the power to flag posts as spam. It poses too many potential problems. Always think about how systems can be abused.
I noted a couple patterns in spam posts to yeaGO!, and we're working through them now to implement a blanket solution. I also pitched the idea of prohibiting users from posting until they create a deck (perhaps allow them to post in the Q&A and TappedOut forums in case they have questions).
December 6, 2013 12:06 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #13
On the topic of notifying admins, I almost always catch spam posts. Even if I miss one, users will relentlessly tag me to it.
December 6, 2013 12:11 p.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #14
Yeah, I've been wondering about that. Your notifications must be crammed full with it. Props for dealing with it like a pro.
Unforgivn_II says... #2
Also, I forgot to ask: Its possible to make something like that right?
December 6, 2013 2:33 a.m.