Since i haven't been working I spend a fair bit of time loitering in these forums, usually in the morning UK time I see at least 12-13 but most people are quick off the mark to report them. Also I've noticed they seem to come in waves at different intervals.
There all around us ! We got bots inside the wire
Exactly.
I report around a dozen each morning (CET) lately.
Stupid thing is, it would be great if the sold miniature kitchens, but no - only normal sizes...
I'm not sure if they've gotten any worse exactly (they were pretty bad before...), but they seem to come in spurts. We don't get any for a while, and then we get loads in the space of a few hours. I deleted 30 over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, but hadn't seen one for a couple of weeks before that.
As Misty said, the problem is that so far we've not been able to find a permanent solution that is supported on our site. There are several things we can do (and are doing) to try and keep them under control at the moment, but nothing that will keep them out indefinitely.
I have found one new way to prevent spam bots. I will try that method tomorrow when I got some spare time. Keep me updated on how they seems to be progressing after tomorrow.
I saw an idea over on the under empire, it seemed pretty neat.
You have the new member read a story and they have to find the answer in the story. You could even highlight and under line the answer to make it really stand out.
Maybe we could have another writing contest or something.
But here, cleverly disguised as a bomb, is a bomb.
-Bullwinkle
If you keep saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet.
-Isaac Bashevis Singer
That is a solution that I have heard several times. But I still don't like it. I would like to avoid having to force people to read more stuff, or do more stuff just to get pass the security. Security on websites should not hinder the normal way of doing things. Instead it should operate in the background. I think it's a fair trade that you guys have to see a bad thread once every day, instead of forcing you to read a page of random words and have you enter an interactive security-system every time you'd like to post a comment in a thread.
Now the new security is installed, and should work properly. If you do see more kitchen bots, hit the blue button near the top of the post to report it for spam. I will make a new button that fits our style, but since I've been working on this friggin' modification for the past 5 hours, I'm a tad tired now. Hopefully, the new security will prevent bots from registrating, but if you see one, report it by clicking the spam button.
The "Report spam" icon has now been changed to be a more suitable representation according to our theme/style.
Also, let me know if any bots get through the new security. I'd like to know if this actually works.
Just to be a pain, my interface hasn't changed. It still only has "report" and "quote", with no "report Spam" button. Was there supposed to be a separate button for report Spam, or did you just mean for us to keep reporting as usual?
EDIT: Naggie, you asked that we let you know if any more bots come through with the new security. Another bot wave just appeared on the portal.
Why do not make an antibot bot ?
I mean a script which looks for "kitchen", "sale" and a phone number in a post, which deletes it, and even if the solution is not perfect, the mods will have a simpler life !
If you can execute cron on your server, or if you have another one which has it, it wont be a problem...
If you don"t have time, i can provide you a ten lines script which will do that without visible cpu usage.
Just to be a pain, my interface hasn't changed. It still only has "report" and "quote", with no "report Spam" button. Was there supposed to be a separate button for report Spam, or did you just mean for us to keep reporting as usual?
Right between the Edit button and the Delete button (on your own posts). It is currently only visible in the Aeliaria style, not in the Kitty style. If you are using the right style and still can't see it, refresh or flush your dns.
As for using scripts to detect and delete threads, I am not a big fan. Having bots with admin powers that include deleting posts and banning users is scary. There will be times when a normal user posts something that the script thinks is a kitchen selling bot. I'd much rather have my Council of Elders doing it, whom I trust more than an automatic script.
Due to 11 new bots coming in during the past 6 hours, I've cranked up the security thresholds. If someone is now unable to post, send me an e-mail on naggie@asrai.org and I'll look into it.
Why are all the bots kitchen vendors?
Is it because we have the word 'Wood' in every single topic? Maybe we should start using a different word instead?
