TheHaflinger.com

In view of the amount of spam that has just hit the site, maybe we need new member threads and posts to be vetted by Admin for say 5 posts to ensure they are real Haflinger type people and not Viagra sellers.

Garry

This is an age old problem for forum sites like this. Usually you can tell from the sign up, I wonder if Markus needs to implement one of those steps where you have to copy a number of word from a picture in order to go any further with the sign up?

John

Marcus - if it would help you I would be more than happy to help out with some of the Moderation tasks on this Forum.

I'll help as well. The spam tsunami thing is a bit rough.

The same group has also hit a couple of Aussie sites I use.

It seems the floodgates opened up on a bunch of forums in the last 48 hours.

This forum has doubled the accounts in that amount of time.
You may need to change the "interrogator" question on the registration page to something ELSE only a human can get, as it appears that the one on there has been answered and distributed to the spam-bots.

I'm happy to help Markus, if you ramp up prevention measures like approving the first posts.

If Markus is off-line, I think Jim may be another moderator who may be able to banish the spammers.

May I suggest one of the photoCapcha plugins for the BBS version.

This one could even be set up to be Haflinger specific!

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/ ... ha_plugin/

Great idea Mike

I'll send Markus an email in case he is not planning to look in any time soon.

Rick

Is there an easy way to delete all these bogus members and make all their posts vanish with them?


Jim

As a moderator with the correct admin rights, you can remove members and their posts, so yes when the correct person gets round to it, that is what will happen.

John

Looks like we have been spammed again by jewsCusewsvern.

Brad

I am not sure what these spammers are trying achieve - can sort of understand if selling a product but this is just swamping the site with no real purpose - I guess it is just some sick fun for some kid.

Unfortunately, removing the accounts isn't enough in this case, as spam-bots have archived the answer to the interrogation question.
Markus is going to have to change that question, to stop all the new accounts from being created.

Membership has more than doubled - so presumably the spam-bots are on a schedule to run every couple of hours, adding posts and new users.

Maybe there should be am interrogation question for new users and then another one for each post? Would be a pain to have to do each time you posted, but if it would stop the spammers, then it would be worth the extra effort.

John

The benefit of these forums are being rapidly compromised as it is becoming impossible to see the good within the bad. A mass cull of the existing spammers and a tighter registration process needs implementing asap, and then a more hands on Moderation function thereafter.

Markus has had quite a few offers of help with running this forum. The fact remains that it is his forum and he has control of it. If he wishes to delegate some of that control, then that is fine. If he wishes to have sole control, then that is fine also and we will just have to wait for clean up operation to happen when it is convenient for him.

I must admit I like being able to come on to this forum, read posts by other that are relevant to Haflingers (and a few that aren't!), make a few posts myself. Being subjected to post after post of prose that doesn't even make sense does get a bit wearing.

John

Markus is now aware of the problem and I'm sure he is trying to deal with it.

Cheers

Rick

Yes is getting beyond a bit of a joke and has been going on for a while now. I am retired and online a lot of the time - being on the opposite side of the world I tend to be online when the rest of the world is asleep.

As such I am more than happy to also take on a vetting/mod role if needed. We have a nice community here and in reality I don't think there is much need for moderating each others posts but certainly vetting new members is needed. Though time consuming after vetting applicants then requiring say the initial 3 or 4 posts to be vetted may be prudent - but needs resources - so maybe someone from the Americas, Europe and AustralAsia to do this so initial posts if deemed OK are cleared quickly.

Happy to assist

Garry

Someone has been busy overnight and all of the spam seems to have gone. Whoever it was, a big Thank You from me!!!!