For someone unknown reason, the COW Forum attracts a remarkable amount of spam advertising (mostly online video streaming for European sports, but also reports of western universities in Chinese and admissions testing prep classes). The volume of spam is so bad that it periodically chokes the reporting of "hot threads" and "latest posts" so that no real Forum members can actually tell what's going on without going to each individual sub-forum subject area. It's annoying. Given their limited audience, why these idiots are posting their spam here is also something of a mystery.
Because most of the spam posters eventually get banned, the Forum accounts that are posting the spam are inevitably newly-created accounts with names like "Asdfjkl" and "gfghkjkljkjk" and other repeating characters which make them easy to identify.
Here's a suggestion to stop this low-level disruption of the Forum: because almost 100% of the spam posts include outside links, how about we create a block for all posts with external links (i.e., non-COW web addresses) for new accounts until the account reaches some minimum number of posts (say, 20 or 25). That should eliminate the spam problem at virtually no cost to legitimate new Forum members . . . .
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A verification system would make a lot of sense, however, if it based simply on number of posts, they will ultimately learn to spam 20 posts to unlock it.
The next step is probably going to be having all posts with outside links post as disabled, and would need to be manually enabled to be read by a staff member. How easy the coding for such a sophisticated system will be is the next issue, though I will bring up both to @Sasri
so we couldnt embed youtube vids and stuff? I rather deal with the spam, although i hate those guys and report them if i see theyre newer. otherwise nem or BB will report em 
Yeah, I thought about that, but I figured 20 posts would give us time to identify the spammers and block them before they reached that level. Maybe a higher number of required posts -- 50 or 100? I cannot imagine that most spammers could be bothered to post that many times in a short period of time before they get banned. I strongly suspect we are dealing with a relatively small number of individual persons who are posting most of this spam -- I see the same patterns over and over again.WiseOdin wrote:
A verification system would make a lot of sense, however, if it based simply on number of posts, they will ultimately learn to spam 20 posts to unlock it.
I would hate that we have to block all outside links to cure this problem, because they are often relevant to actual Forum discussions.
i agree but have no suggestion as to how to eliminate the spammers. they are not cool...
To our understanding, it is a sweat shop type scenario with a few people in a small computer office that spam hundreds of different forums, daily.
Sure you can, however, all outside links would have to be approved by a staff member.Dixie wrote:
so we couldnt embed youtube vids and stuff?
ouch. by the time it is approved, its relevance will have passed. "hey, i had a funny thing to add to your post. check it out in a week from now."
just...ouch. punished for someone elses misdeeds.
ya gotta find a better way. please.
Sadly, that could quickly become a bigger burden on Forum staff's time than deleting the damn spam.WiseOdin wrote:
Sure you can, however, all outside links would have to be approved by a staff member.
how about if you dont let anyone post anything in the forum until they play for 14 days? Anyone can read posts as a guest, but not let them post right away. the boiler rooms will have a harder time if they have to play for two weeks before they can start the crap.
Well, I think you want to encourage rookie players to actively participate in the Forum. I think that encourages player (i.e. Bytro customer) retention. So, completely nixing forum participation by rookies is probably overkill.Dixie wrote:
how about if you dont let anyone post anything in the forum until they play for 14 days?
That said, the basic idea IS an idea worth exploring: tying the ability to include external links in Forum posts to actual COW-playing time. I'm no programmer, but I have two basic questions: (1) are forum accounts tied to player accounts; and (2) if so, is this a practicable solution given the required programming involved?
Not only do we want to encourage new players to use forums, but the advertisers would also simply make accounts and use them after 14 days. The developers have been looking into this, and have come up with some other top secret options we will be putting into effect this coming week.
Well, that sounds promising. Nothing like challenging our programmers by telling them that the spammers seem to be smarter than we are.WiseOdin wrote:
The developers have been looking into this, and have come up with some other top secret options we will be putting into effect this coming week.
These "advertisers" sure seem determined to make these annoying posts. I cannot imagine that it is cost-effective to spam the COW forum with these links. Seems like an enormous waste of everyone's time (and their money). I'm guessing that the worker-bee spammers are paid by the post, meaning they spam every accessible site regardless of its likely return of actual users of the links.WiseOdin wrote:
the advertisers would also simply make accounts and use them after 14 days.
more likely the workers are paid by some sort of commission, which is also a scam. then they give them quotas which if they dont fill they get fired. then, they recruit someone else with promises of what they can earn (if they work really hard). It wouldnt surprise me if it wasnt an internet work-from-home scam. they probably dont pay what they promised, even to the ones that produce.
Maybe thats the 30 + yrs of car dealership experience talkin', idk
Dix, I would be grateful if you would periodically check the "off topic" and "general discussion" sections and report any spam you see. I've been flagging them with the simple note "spam" and the moderators have gotten pretty quick about deleting them and banning the accounts.
Sure, it's like playing Whack-a-Mole, but it can be entertaining.
actually i do. i admit lately i have been a little lazy cuz i get tired of sorting thru that part of the forum. there was one guy last month who hit EVERY category one after another and as soon as he posted, i flagged with the one word description: spam.
I made the mistake of responding to one of those posts with a "quit it" or something to that effect and the guy blasted my wall with about 20 of his spam posts. I had to delete them all and block him. I learned a lesson there, haha
Easy as 3.14.Dixie wrote:
. . . and block him.
hilarious. i just reported one from off topic "top of the card". speak of the devils
If you look at the "members online" section at the bottom of the Forum main page, you can usually pick them out from their user name, and the usual sections in which they are reading, even before the new accounts post their first spam.
ah good idea. ill use it
Rather, they are (advanced?) bots I think. The 20 post limit should probably eliminate 99% of them. Yet, if it isnt, you can always try to find a new solutionWiseOdin wrote:
To our understanding, it is a sweat shop type scenario with a few people in a small computer office that spam hundreds of different forums, daily.Sure you can, however, all outside links would have to be approved by a staff member.Dixie wrote:
so we couldnt embed youtube vids and stuff?
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