I joined the site a number of years ago, before the Curse takeover, but it seems the logistics of getting a membership and posting immediately for the spam bots is fairly easy now, as the recent post section, especially at night in the USA is inundated with spam posts. Will it ever get better? Because each time I see it, and then see those spam posts sometimes remain for quite some time, it just seems "shoddy". I don't know if this is the correct forum for this post, but it's the best I could see.
Spam has always been a problem, and we have a spam filter which "learns" to detect spam posts and automatically delete them. Unfortunately, there are a fair number of spam posts which are able to emulate a normal post enough that we cannot target them with this method because it will in turn hit real users for spam. Couple this with us being a juicier target for ad spam now that we are a larger site, and you can understand why we get the spam we do.
There isn't much more we can do about it without making registration and posting more stringent for real users, and because many of the spam bots are actual humans, this won't deter them. What we ask from users is more patience in ignoring them, and to be proactive in reporting them so the staff gets more visibility (there are many forums I rarely visit, but if I see an adbot report I'll kill it on sight).
I knew one forum where the first post of any member had to be approved by a mod. Only after the approval the posts submitted by the user would show up. After this the member could post normally.
Since the spam bot usually start spamming with the first post they are easy to detect.
It would be a minor inconvenience for new member but I would think a massive hit against the spam bots.
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But like I said, they actually aren't bots most of the time. A lot of them are actual people getting paid to do this, so most likely they would create sign up posts that looked realish. Between those and the bots which our filter catches, the staff would be overwhelmed with requests, increasing the wait time for real new users.
I'm not trying to come off as dismissive, because this exact idea is one of the ideas we brainstormed.
It was just a suggestion... I am not sure if this would be easy to implement or feasible for you guys...
I mean you have to clean up after the bots anyway so I thought this would not be that much work.
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Well we do appreciate the suggestions. There is a wealth of knowledge on this site because of the thousands of users, and you all may come up with a suggestion we haven't thought of or that would trigger another idea.
There isn't much more we can do about it without making registration and posting more stringent for real users, and because many of the spam bots are actual humans, this won't deter them. What we ask from users is more patience in ignoring them, and to be proactive in reporting them so the staff gets more visibility (there are many forums I rarely visit, but if I see an adbot report I'll kill it on sight).
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Since the spam bot usually start spamming with the first post they are easy to detect.
It would be a minor inconvenience for new member but I would think a massive hit against the spam bots.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
I'm not trying to come off as dismissive, because this exact idea is one of the ideas we brainstormed.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
I mean you have to clean up after the bots anyway so I thought this would not be that much work.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg