Closing the forum

[Rhyagelle]

Okay, the forum really needs to do the following:
 

• Prevent NON-buyers from posting in ANY place except Questions. This will help keep ALL spam within 1 section when it does slip by.
• Enable anti-spam methods for the forum. This includes CAPTCHA, but not only CAPTCHA. Find more for the forum board here.
• More moderators, preferably with different time-zones, to catch leaking spam through-out the day.
• Throw in link banning for new members + word limits for accounts under 2 weeks old OR that do not have the game bought

[Yeetiee]

We have probably a new record today. 3 spammers accounts are active at the same time and are adding their garbage. I can't determine if there is new post on forum as spam can fill whole pages...

[Michaloid]

Things are getting worse now...

[Landar]

Rather than straight-up restricting new accounts/non-buyers, I think a cooldown timer on posting would work just as well. Two ideas that come to mind are to prevent them from posting for a period of time after making a new forum account, or make it so they have to wait after posting to post again. 

[DX65]

15 hours ago, Michaloid said:

Things are getting worse now...

I saw in mod releases, "Black Magic Protection" and I almost click it thinking it was new mod:)

[Yeetiee]

3 hours ago, Landar said:

Rather than straight-up restricting new accounts/non-buyers, I think a cooldown timer on posting would work just as well. Two ideas that come to mind are to prevent them from posting for a period of time after making a new forum account, or make it so they have to wait after posting to post again. 

As of now i don't really care if its overall ban on posting for nonbuyers or new accounts, captcha to add posts or your solution. I just want the luxury to check the forum for new posts and see normal content instead of this spam.

[Chad Kleckler]

Lol, I initially had the same reaction to the black magic spam. A magic mod sounded quite interesting if maybe a little off-theme. I was sorely disappointed. I felt obliged to report the fifteen or so posts after that and also noticed the lack of a report user feature. I guess it could be abuseable but seems at least a way of possibly mitigating a known spammer or bot from continued spamming? I don't know what all of the options for regulating forums are but I have seen rules such as one post per 24hr period for accounts that are new be somewhat effective. Even an hour limit could be effective at detecting bots if you could also track and ban repeated attempts to violate the limit. You can still ask your question and view threads with a time limit but it makes for a bit of a buffer against the ill-intended. The forums for The Dark Mod are an example of some rather tight restrictions in-place initially that lessen considerably over time. Small community with minimal moderators but rather effective spam prevention. Not trying to compare or anything, just throwing some thoughts/suggestions out there. I personally only find the spamming a minor nuisance but I also don't have to clean it up:)

 

Edit: After looking at the account of the recent spam bot the account was created two hours ago and has posted 30 times. They are also a higher rank than myself now even though I've been lurking around since 2019:) Jokes aside, the point stands that 30 posts in an hour on a two hour old account would definitely not happen with a time limit, that's for sure.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Chad Kleckler

[Michaloid]

6 hours ago, DX65 said:

I saw in mod releases, "Black Magic Protection" and I almost click it thinking it was new mod:)

Look out for those, some might be phishing links, and of cource the numbers are to suck your phone's money dry and/or get you in serious trouble.

[Davis]

I think we need to implement that if you don't have a game account, you can't make a forum account. You can view everything, but that's it. 

 

The only people contributing to this forum should be players of the game anyway. At least if the bots continue to buy the game, it's money in the Dev's pocket for production. I could live with it at that cost. 

[Michaloid]

14 minutes ago, Davis said:

The only people contributing to this forum should be players of the game anyway.

That's SO a wrong way to view newcomers, every person has the right to post questions and their thoughts on the game before they buy it! But we should make a captcha or a timer for each topic, it doesn't make sense to make a 100 topics in one hour.

[Yeetiee]

1 hour ago, Michaloid said:

That's SO a wrong way to view newcomers, every person has the right to post questions and their thoughts on the game before they buy it! But we should make a captcha or a timer for each topic, it doesn't make sense to make a 100 topics in one hour.

So leave "questions" subforum for them. The rest should belong to players. I can live with ignoring one subforum but clicking constantly "mark... as read" on all subs to follow up is getting tedious...

[l33tmaan]

1 hour ago, Davis said:

I think we need to implement that if you don't have a game account, you can't make a forum account. You can view everything, but that's it. 

 

The only people contributing to this forum should be players of the game anyway. At least if the bots continue to buy the game, it's money in the Dev's pocket for production. I could live with it at that cost. 

No? What? What is wrong with you? Are you going to make it so you need a game account to talk on the Discord too? 

Edited April 21, 2022 by l33tmaan

[Davis]

1 hour ago, Michaloid said:

That's SO a wrong way to view newcomers, every person has the right to post questions and their thoughts on the game before they buy it! But we should make a captcha or a timer for each topic, it doesn't make sense to make a 100 topics in one hour.

Or you know, go on discord and join our discord to ask questions. I've been a moderator and forum user for over 15 years. There is absolutely no reason for a game like this to require players who have not even purchased the game to post on here. Trying to moderate bots without proper anti bot protection is difficult I've been through it. 

Tyron should reach out to Invision Community (the sell this forum software that we're using) and see what they suggest, this isn't an uncommon issue, every forum faces this. 

[l33tmaan]

Asking people to join discord to ask questions because they have to pay to use the forum is horrible. 

[Davis]

Just now, l33tmaan said:

Asking people to join discord to ask questions because they have to pay to use the forum is horrible. 

That puzzles me because creating a forum account is a lot more work then just jumping onto a server that is free to join on discord where we're all actively monitoring chat. 

I agree it's not a great solution and I'd prefer it stays open, but if they don't invest in deeper bot filtration and prevention, it's the quick fix for right now. The other way to complete this would be to install two factor authentication, but imo that's an even bigger pain in the ass for the rest of us. Most cheap bots have a hard time getting around it though. 

Otherwise assign more people to be a moderator and police the shit out of the forums. However, that isn't a solution just a constant clean-up job. 

[Rhyagelle]

I agree restricting it entirely is absolutely terrible. There's absolutely no reason we can't allow non-buyers to post in one section. Punishing them for spam and lack of anti-spam measures on the forum is ridiculous. And having Discord as a different sort of forum is also terrible. Just because everyone is using it does not mean it should be used in this sense. Avoid it like the plague. There's little to no way to moderate it as well.
 

What needs to happen is restricting new and non-buyer accounts to the questions section + a 5 post moderator approved timer (works on almost EVERY forum!), implement anti-spam measures and get more moderators. 

[setne550]

As someone who formerly manage/mod a forum site, spambots are like a usual thing. Being too restricted won't do, but then again the best way is just a regular moderation and some people reporting for any spam done by bots.

 

Besides, that means the VS forum is getting some sort of attention... In not a good way.

[Tyron]

We did a few changes now:

• Spam defense set to a more sensitive level i.e. require moderator approval of posts if the user might be a spammer
• Automoderation: If any reports as post as Spam and said users is less than 7 days old the content will be hidden
• We'll be collecting Phrases the spammers post and require moderator approval if new posts contain these phrases

[Yeetiee]

14 minutes ago, Tyron said:

We did a few changes now:

• Spam defense set to a more sensitive level i.e. require moderator approval of posts if the user might be a spammer
• Automoderation: If any reports as post as Spam and said users is less than 7 days old the content will be hidden
• We'll be collecting Phrases the spammers post and require moderator approval if new posts contain these phrases

Thank you

About that phrases: try + symbol as most, if not all, spam contains phone number and its not that commonly used sign.

[DX65]

The first seven post in questions is all spam. I am nervous even about clicking them to report them. The spam is obvious though if any forum moderator wants to find them.

 

[Yeetiee]

As the fight with spammers continues I propose adding the ability to ignore users. This feature would hide all posts added by ignored accounts and prevent the ignoring account from seeing any new post added by the ignored. 

Tbh it seems easier to block spammers than constantly click "mark as read".

And the biggest question: Is it even possible?

Edited April 27, 2022 by Yeetiee

[Majn9n]

Just need to add a plugin to keep bots from making user accounts.

[Yeetiee]

But it won't stop people from making this accounts and then adding spam using bots

[Rhyagelle]

It's still happening.

Is there no way to limit new posts to moderator approval? I cannot imagine there isn't an option for this. It would GREATLY cut down on spam. 

[Streetwind]

It's been vastly improved, IMHO. I used to wake up to spam-posts five forum pages deep every single day. Now I only see a handful of them once a week or so.

Obviously there may be more going on when I'm asleep, but it's a measure of general improvement.