Forum Spam

Ideas to improve Criticker and new feature requests, as well as announcements about new enhancements.
mattorama12
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Forum Spam

Post by mattorama12 »

I've noticed an uptick in forum spam recently, which is probably a good sign in the sense that it probably follows from overall increased traffic to the site.

In any event, most (all?) of the spam posts are from accounts that have no film ratings. I'd suggest creating a rule that doesn't allow users with no ratings to post to the forum until it's been pre-approved by a moderator. I think the number of genuine posts from people with 0 ratings has to be so low that this shouldn't pose a huge problem. But hopefully this would help things (at least until the spam arms race leads to spam users with 1 rating).

iconogassed
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Re: Forum Spam

Post by iconogassed »

mattorama12 wrote:
Mon May 25, 2020 4:44 pm
I think the number of genuine posts from people with 0 ratings has to be so low that this shouldn't pose a huge problem. But hopefully this would help things (at least until the spam arms race leads to spam users with 1 rating).
FWIW this is very common for new threads in the "Help me name that movie" subforum. People google that phrase or something like it and then register to ask

mattorama12
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Re: Forum Spam

Post by mattorama12 »

Good point. Maybe it's not worth the effort.

mpowell
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Re: Forum Spam

Post by mpowell »

Thanks for your thoughts on this!

Iconogassed is right that the forums are a popular way into Criticker for new users with no ratings. And Mattorama12 is right that there's been an uptick in spam.

We'll be keeping our eye on this, and introducing other anti-spam measures where appropriate. We've already done a bit of work, which helped with an influx of spam immediately after the forum was upgraded.

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