Spam

[ryeland of doom]

Yesterday I asked if it was possible to improve the monitoring of spam on this forum. Today I looked at an important orienteering topic and got pornographic images. Tomorrow these could be illegal.

I will no longer be using this forum for the near future. If it appears that it is safe, I will be back.
Have a good 6 Days.

[awk]

Must admit, I have sympathy with that position Ryeland: awkward enough navigating round the site some days with pornographic threads incessantly proliferationg, but these have now polluted some of the threads themselves.

[mappingmum]

It helps if everyone can report inappropriate posts as soon as they see one.

I assume reporting such a post will send an e-mail to the moderators and hasten it's removal. If they remain unreported then you have to wait for the powers that be to read all the posts which is likely to be considerably longer.

[brooner]

Yesterday I asked if it was possible to improve the monitoring of spam on this forum.

Who/what/where to?

Apologies for recent influx, I'm away from computers with work this week so not as quick to pounce on things, have asked Pyrat to try and beef up defences elsewhere.

[RS]

Have tried to pm Pyrat re more porn but think msg hasn't sent. How about some tips on how to report it?

[AndyC]

seems to be very invasive at the moment -possibly due to Brooner's decreased vigilance. No complaints about that he has to live a life outside Nope and I thank him for his efforts.
I've just looked at the regstration process and as well as a Captcha (which I struggled to work the words out on) it still requires to send an activation email to a valid account from which a reply is required.
Difficult for more to be done if that is working properly.
To the Mods we appreciate the effort keep trying

[mappingmum]

How about some tips on how to report it?

On the offending post, to the immediate right of the "quote" button, there is an inverted triangle. Click on this and it displays the reporting interface. Or, if the post has already been reported - the dialogue advises you "this post has already been reported".

[Spookster]

I've just looked at the regstration process and as well as a Captcha (which I struggled to work the words out on) it still requires to send an activation email to a valid account from which a reply is required.
Difficult for more to be done if that is working properly.
To the Mods we appreciate the effort keep trying

There are still 20-30 new forum members each day, the vast majority of whom are spammers, so it's not working.

Surely it needs a better human intervention, either by the person registering (to prove they know something about orienteering), or by the mod responding. But I realise that takes time and effort...

[mikey]

Definitely needs some human intervention - the mods don't have enough time (no criticism) but several people have offered to help them with keeping spam off - may be now is the time to act on this.

(although you do have to wonder why a clearly pornographic thread gets 21 views unless it is the smam-botters reading their own threads)

[King Penguin]

(although you do have to wonder why a clearly pornographic thread gets 21 views unless it is the smam-botters reading their own threads)

Possibly because this thread advises the way to report an inappropriate post is to click the triangle button which you can only access if you view the post !

[Paul Frost]

I know it reduces the sites features, but not allowing images in posts or signatures may be a necessary action. At least then there is no possibility of dodgy images appearing.

I know how time consuming it is, but manual activation of account requests may end up being the only solution. The checking process would be easier of people had to register with their real name and club otherwise it's hard to know who is genuine. I have had enough experience of this myself to know how clever the spammers are.

Part of the problem is that the application that powers this site, phpBB, is used by hundreds of thousands of sites, so the scripts used to spam it are very commonly available. Backlinking is the term, and a Google search of this along with phpBB will produce lots of results.

[Scott]

To validate new users Nopesport is currently using recaptcha, which has been cracked. The phpBB forums have some alternative anti-spam suggestions - it may be worth passing on that link to Pyrat.

[Paul Frost]

I used to manage a phpBB forum many years ago and as quick as a new method was found to block spammers another door was opened. The spammers read about new anti-spam methods quicker than the rest of us, so they are always one step ahead.

You need to find your own secret way of beating them and then not tell anyone else what you did.

[Familytaxi driver]

(although you do have to wonder why a clearly pornographic thread gets 21 views unless it is the smam-botters reading their own threads)

Apart from the clearly pornographic thread that are usually easy to spot there was a pornographic post + image in a "normal" thread. Not acceptable - as could be seen by anyone of any age reading that thread.

[AndyC]

I actually swore out loud when I say that one -quite a shock. Just as hard to stop though