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Update on Spam Levels and Mollom (November 16, 2012)

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John T. Haller
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Update on Spam Levels and Mollom (November 16, 2012)

As some folks have noticed, we have been experiencing a dramatic rise in spam. Even with captchas for registrations and email confirmations before posting, we have days when the number of spam messages attempting to be made reaches 3,000. To fight this, we've been using Mollom as an antispam service. It has been keeping 95-99% of those messages from being posted at all, but several each day will still get through and need to be manually moderated. Additionally, some users have been stuck needing to solve a captcha or having to alter a link to be able to post their messages. We apologize for this, but it is an unfortunate and necessary evil at the moment.

We're working on training the Mollom filter to better recognize the types of posts we have. We are also manually blocking specific IPs and netblocks from which the largest amounts of spam are originating (primarily in China and the Ukraine).

Thanks for your patience and assistance!

ASJ
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Monumental Task

Thanks, John, to you and to all the PA crew. You guys put out a fantastic product. The spam issue is big but I know you're on it.
I just had a thought: If the PA site were not so popular and the PA product wasn't as good as it is, would the spammers be so interested in spamming this site?

Keep up the good work!

Don't be a pin-head!

John T. Haller
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Popularity, Links and Traffic

We're a very popular site and that certainly comes into play. But we're also a heavily linked site, which spammers also like. The goal with most forum spam is to attempt to get links coming to them with their specific key words in the link, in an attempt to game search engines into ranking their site higher for those keywords. Like any properly run site, though, we have NOFOLLOW set on all outbound links users add to our forum, meaning they won't get any benefit at all. Sadly, the spammers are too dumb to realize this, so they just keep spamming away with no possible benefit.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Aluísio A. S. G.
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Spam post properties

I've been thinking a bit, and I'd like to know if the following are true:

  • Spam posts have an unusually high number of links;
  • Links on a single post point to similar (or even the same) URLs; and
  • Spam posts aren't edited once posted.

Would you and the other moderators mind on checking these next time you catch a spam?

Previously known as kAlug.

ASJ
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Suggestion

I remember not too long ago a poster suggested putting a "report spam" button on the site. Would that be of any help? A "report spam" button could be programmed to report to a central "spam report" location whereby the moderators could monitor and more quickly respond. Forum users are in and out all the time and could report the spam in a timely fashion. I would think this would be easier and quicker than having to peruse/monitor the whole forum.

Just thinking out loud - what do you think?

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Simeon
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melikes

this. I think we already discussed it a while back.

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Ken Herbert
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Unfortunately...

There are limitations and possibilities for abuse.

If John sets it up so user-flagged spam is automatically removed after a certain number of flags, there is the opening for someone to create multiple accounts and get any post(s) down-voted enough to be deleted by the system, just because they don't like the person, or just because they can take advantage of the situation to hassle people.

Otherwise, we would still be waiting on a moderator to get to each spammy post to delete it, which I don't think would change response times much from what they are.

The only real solution I can see is continued vigilance, the hope that Mollom really can be taught to detect spam in a smarter way than it currently does, and maybe upping the number of moderators by a few.

ASJ
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Research

I researched this topic and found numerous posts about a spam button dating back to 2010.

The type of spam button I was thinking of was an aid for the moderators to use, not automated. I thought it might be helpful to have a centralized location on reported spam activity rather than having to search the whole PA.com forum site. The moderators could view the report and then go straight to the spam location. They would then determine if the post was spam or a legitimate post.

EXAMPLE: at this very moment that I write this post there is spam on the "Off Topic" forum. If users had the opportunity to report this spam via a "Report Spam" button, a moderator could go directly to the post. That spam would probably be gone before I finish writing this post.
UPDATE: It has been over 12 hours and that spam is still there. I wonder if a "Report Spam" button would help.

But, since this topic has already been heavily discussed, it probably won't be considered.

Don't be a pin-head!

KevinM
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Probation?

The vast majority of spam comes from new users, right?

How bout new users start out on probation - their posts not seen (by anyone other than themselves) till reviewed and approved. After a certain number of posts are approved their probation ends.

ASJ
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Great Idea

I like it, and I think it would work with minimal fuss. It could virtually eliminate the spam that regular users are having to deal with. It definitely is better than trying to catch up to the spam, which is how spam is presently handled. This would be a proactive approach.

I wonder if John and the rest of the PA crew would approve.

Don't be a pin-head!

Simeon
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manual

I thought about a button that sends the posts to a list that can then be checked by a moderator. I certainly see the problems with automated deletion.
Some of the moderators that are listed in the forums have been absent for quite a while (at least thats my observation), so maybe an update with new mods from different parts of the world would be a good idea.

"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate

KevinM
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Manual Thoughts

Do we really need moderators to review posts? Seems like regular users would be reliable enough for this, provide we can devise an approach that avoids abuse by individual willful users.

Put an 'eligible to review reported spam' option in the user profile page and display a 'review' dialog to randomly chosen users once a post is reported as spam. I'd think randomly choosing users for review would be sufficient to avoid willful abuse.

Might work equally well for probationary posts.

depp.jones
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No real advantage

It would only help with topics that are not covered by the recent post tracker (like the ones in the off topic forum). Any other new posts appear in the tracker. There normally is not much more than a page or one and a half on a normal posting day, so spam can not "hide" in the "vast" forum structure. Normally, new spam topics can easily be identified in the list at first glance. Spam attached to older topics gets caught when you "scan" the posts.
I don't know the workflow of the mods to clean up the forum, but I think, an additional list to look at first - especially one that has to be filled with content that could easily be spotted by the mod himself - would not make it much faster/easier than it already is. It would only help in case of the off topic forum where spam might slip the mods attention, but on the other hand, that forum seems rather deserted...

ASJ
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Thank You for the explanation

Thanks, I appreciate the explanation of what the mods would go through. Of course, as a regular user/visitor to PA.com, I'm unaware of the inside goings on. I'm just trying to help from the outside looking in.

I think you are right about the off topic forum - it seems to be abandoned. There's two topics of spam by the same poster. One has been there for almost 22 hours.

Thanks for your common sense reply,

Al .... Smile

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depp.jones
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I don't know for shure, I

I don't know for shure, I just guess. The tracker is available for every user. It's on the left side menu, when you are logged in (Recent Posts).

ASJ
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Filters

So the report isn't over run with false reports you could set up the button with filters that would report no fewer than 10 submission and would allow only one submission per user per event. Actually, you could set it up any way that would work best for the PA.com moderators. It would be there to help facilitate the task at hand, to curb spam.

Don't be a pin-head!

John T. Haller
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Ideas vs Implementation

There are some good ideas here, but what matters is what already exists for Drupal in terms of add-ons. Or Apache plugins we can install. We don't have the resources at present to custom code stuff.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Ed_P
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Limit frequency

I don't know what capabilities or limitations Drupal has but if you could limit posting frequency, a 1 post per hour limit for example, particularly for new users but for everyone wouldn't hurt. SPAMmers rarely stick around to post multiple times.

And while this won't completely stop SPAM it will stop the SPAMmer multi-posts that have occurred lately.

Ed

John T. Haller
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Won't Work

Spammers are already automated to get around it by creating an account and waiting up to 10 days before using it. Drupal has no functionality built-in.

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depp.jones
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Is there a possibility to

Is there a possibility to compare the content of subsequent posts? It occurs to me, that often the posts are (nearly) identical. At least that portion could be filtered.

John T. Haller
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Good Thought, But No

There are modules that do that, including the Drupal Spam module. Unfortunately, all spammers work around that, too, by having a wall of random text with links in between to get around duplicate content filters.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Ed_P
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No

I understand about the waiting to post bit but that's not what I meant. What I suggested was limiting the time between postings. Thus even if the 1st post is 10 days from registering the 2nd post will have to wait 1 hr to be posted. Or 5 hrs or whatever period you choose.

Ed

John T. Haller
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No Module

There's no module I know of that has that feature. There is one that limits posts by account age (which would not work with our current spammers), but I think it is no longer supported.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Zach Thibeau
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John I know this maybe a bit

John I know this maybe a bit of pain but this is what I experienced using a phpbb board you may want to disable UTC-12 registrations (since no one lives there), possibly disable link posting for new users till a certain post level, or perhaps disabling link posting altogether in certain forums to help curtail link spam.
I don't know if there would be any modules for drupal or not to achieve this but it maybe worth to try at least the disabling posting of links for new users temporarily

your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau

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