Restricting new members.

[Dimitri]

Hi,

I noticed a significant increase of spam messages (or may be I am just more attentive), each time from people who had just registered.

So, "may be", WW should consider restricting privileges of news members.

At my own message board, when new members are posting, their messages are not going live automatically, they remain pending for approval by a moderator. After 5 approved messages, this restriction is removed, and their messages are showing as soon as they post them. However, links are not clickable , just the URLs are showing. After 10 messages, they can post clickable links.

Just a thought,

[brotherhood of LAN]

Pretty sure something like that is in place, or was in place. Could have changed though.

[NickMNS]

It's certainly not the case currently. There was just (a few minutes ago) a newly registered member that posted 5 or 6 posts in various thread with spammy links. At this time of day they flagged immediately and then deleted just as fast.

Dimitry brings up a good point.

[graeme_p]

It keeps happening.

Maybe all new member posts could be held for review. Also it would be good if email notifications were delayed for a bit so any spam could be removed.

[Dimitri]

Or, if it's really considered to be too annoying for new members, to have their post pending until a moderator approves them, this can be done only for posts which contain an URL. Spamers would still be able to advertise things, but without clickable URLs this is less bad.

Dimitry brings up a good point.

Thank you :)

[engine]

Thanks for being there and making the suggestions, they are always welcomed. The fact that you care is great, and what you do to alert the team here is really helpful, thank you.
We do have a number of ways of combating the issues you raise, although I won't go into those, for obvious reasons.
We have, on many occasions, discussed making posts pre-moderated, and, at the moment, we have got a pretty good balance on that, but we could always be better.
Sadly, there will always be something which gets through.

[not2easy]

^{note - this is an unofficial, personal comment:}
We very much appreciate the reports that come in, that helps us clean it up faster. I can only say that those that bypass the filters are far fewer than those that are caught so you never see most of the junk. That said, we are webmasters like you are and this is not a paid position with 100% coverage. There is also the attrition factor that can affect the Mod-squad. Your clean up team are volunteers and we try to keep it shiny clean - but litter happens from time to time.

Some forums are pre-moderated, such as the Google SEO News and Discussion forum. That often can delay a post awaiting a Mod (especially on weekends) which then causes it to show up far down the Recent Posts list where it can be overlooked. We would not want that to happen to every new post so it is a balance of filters and UX. I can agree that there has been a recent surge in the sheer quantity. :(

[Dimitri]

We would not want that to happen to every new post

You can restrict pre-moderation to messages which are from new member ( < 5 messages ) AND if the message contains an URL. Considering the TOS and restriction about posting URLs, a new member who starts right away by posting an URL is highly suspect :)

[tangor]

For new members who have not achieved the threshold, I would suggest that any posting text area have "PLEASE READ OUR TERMS OF SERVICE. PERSONAL URLS ARE NOT ALLOWED. WE DO NOT DO SITE REVIEWS IN THE PUBLIC AREAS."

We all know nobody reads TOS, so make it stand out FIRST TIME. :)

How this is implemented (a line above the box, or inside the text box and disappears when text is entered) is up to the UI gang.

BTW, mods and gang at WW ... we do good work together and most of these things are caught VERY quickly.

Thanks!

[engine]

>We all know nobody reads TOS, so make it stand out FIRST TIME. :)

And if it's a spammer, raising its profile wouldn't help. But, yes, it could be improved.

[tangor]

At some point new folks get to post ... that's when the notice should appear. Pre-moderated is the best way ... but time and personnel resource consuming ... and asking a lot for volunteers to take on.

Over the years (since 2005 for me) I've been quite satisfied with the moderation of these kind of issues, the reporting tool is helpful, and the gang all here are quick spotters of bad rubbish.

Compared to other forums, WW is extremely well-run and is one of the reasons why I'm still here. :)

[NickMNS]

My problem is that I constantly have to fight the urge to post snarky replies to the ridiculous spammy posts. You know when the spammers post things like "Click here to let us learn you English".

[lucy24]

I constantly have to fight the urge to post snarky replies to the ridiculous spammy posts

Oh, go ahead. Your reply will disappear when the post you're replying to is deleted, and in the mean time you've given innocent amusement to others.

In Disqus threads, when a spam post is deleted, any accrued replies stay behind. So you'll sometimes find long fruitful discussions of just how much you should expect to pay for a new LandRover.

[iamlost]

the reporting tool is helpful

Oblivious, mine name is iamlost.

Umm, reporting tool?
Wherefore, pray tell?

[NickMNS]

Umm, reporting tool?
Wherefore, pray tell?

Click on the Msg#:1234567 button, then "report message".

tool == button

[ken_b]

I've found the reporting tool to be pretty effective at alerting whoever is in charge of deleting spam at the moment.

As far as restricting new users goes, that might work for the novice spammer, but might not for the the pros, for reasons probably best not posted in public, why give tips on how to spam :)

[iamlost]

@NickMNS: thanks much. Much too obvious, no wonder I never noticed!

[NickMNS]

To be honest, I don't know how I figured out that it was there. It must be my need to figure out what everything does and how it works.

[tangor]

I think I posted about the message reporting about 6 years ago ... I also discovered it by accident. :)

Sadly, these days, since I do everything with JS turned off, I can't play any longer in reporting rubbish. (I don't do anything google these days and the interactive at WW is a g ajax ... JUST ME!)

[System]

discussion about displaying fragment identifiers on WebmasterWorld can be found here: webmasterworld/4955034.htm [webmasterworld.com]

[edited by: phranque at 12:53 am (utc) on Jul 18, 2019]

[System]

The following 3 messages were cut out to new thread by engine. New thread at: /foo/4955411.htm [webmasterworld.com]
3:54 pm on Jul 19, 2019 (utc +1)