Planetside Software Forums

General => Open Discussion => Topic started by: MGebhart on August 12, 2011, 07:00:45 PM

Title: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: MGebhart on August 12, 2011, 07:00:45 PM
Just a heads up. I have gotten a couple Inappropriate replies to topics. It appears to be gibberish but includes links to pornographic websites. I have reported this to the Admin. Has anyone else had this happen?

I had to was my eyes out with soap.   
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Henry Blewer on August 12, 2011, 07:26:19 PM
I have seen quite a few posts that are for questionable sites. They are usually cleared up quite fast. There are ways to block this, but it would close up the openness of the forum considerably.
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: MGebhart on August 12, 2011, 07:31:38 PM
I'm sure it would and I don't want that. For some reason I can't figure out the lack of intelligence and character in most folks.   
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Zairyn Arsyn on August 12, 2011, 09:31:43 PM
were under attack!  >:(
its been going on like this for a while, the spammers/bots have been registering on the forums every day pretty much for months
most of them seem to be inactive though.
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Oshyan on August 17, 2011, 02:54:58 PM
We're working on the spam problem. We put some systems in place a couple months ago that seemed to help but it's back to unacceptable levels again so those measures must have been breached. It's a constant war unfortunately. There are some more options we'll try in the near future. Most of all, like you, we don't want to have to lock down the forums too much as it's the openness and vibrant discussion that results here that is so valuable.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: FrankB on August 17, 2011, 02:59:43 PM
I have recently added a simple but random math equation (like 18 - 4= ...) that new users have to solve when registering at NWDA Premier Store, as we got a couple dozen spam registrations daily. Since this is on, I don't have any spam registration anymore.
But I'm sure one day this is also not going to be a hurdle anymore.


Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Oshyan on August 17, 2011, 03:41:55 PM
Yes, exactly. We added a novel image rotation puzzle to registration a while back which helped for a bit, but was eventually cracked. I see the math puzzles around many places now and if they are not yet cracked, they will be. One problem is that in fact many of these spam registrations are *not* bots but instead extremely cheap labor, organized over the Internet, often from 3rd world countries or other places where cheap labor is plentiful (unfortunately services like "Mechanical Turk" feed this industry). Since they are real humans, they can usually solve these things. The only barrier that stands in their way is making it take so much time to solve the puzzles that it's not worth it for the pay they get. This of course also means it takes your real visitors more time, but as long as it's not so high that they leave, then it's a win I guess. It's a tough balancing act.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: FrankB on August 17, 2011, 05:32:51 PM
... or switch to managed registration approvals, meaning that you manually approve new registrations. Most of the time the fake registrants are easy to spot, once you look into the registration data. Anyway you are right in that this is an ongoing battle.

Frank
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Oshyan on August 17, 2011, 06:11:18 PM
Yes, manual registrations are one option, but you then have to deal manually with sometimes 100s of registrations a day, or at least 10s of registrations per day. That's the kind of volume we *actually* see: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?action=stats In August there are sometimes upwards of 100 registrations a day. If you look back in July, you'll see what happened when we initially implemented the captcha alternative, new registrations dropped to an average of less than 10 per day! That means most likely 90% of new registrations are spammers. Eek.

The other problem with manual approval is often times the spammers are smart enough to register without obvious spammy info in their profile, then change it later or post URLs to spam pages. Generally it's not too hard to figure out which is which, but it does take time and effort, all of which take away from more important things of course. *sigh*

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Henry Blewer on August 17, 2011, 06:22:04 PM
A parser may be an answer. Most of the spam I have seen here deals with certain products, phraseology, or off color topics. Known users could be taken off the check list. We like to have our little spats, like any family. ;) ::)
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Cyber-Angel on August 17, 2011, 09:39:00 PM
Well the "Report to Moderator" feature is a good thing to have on here and I use it if I find some thing of a dubious nature, as I'm sure many here do! Ultimately I think that a few more moderators round here, perhaps willing members whom are here frequently, who could take of some of that load form the regular Planetside staff if the spam rate where to go up.

The thing is, that Matt, Jo and Oshyan can not be here on the forums at all times and so if an occurrence of spam or related business occurs then it can be a while before it is dealt with, having dedicated moderators could with that if it was felt the need for such a role.

There would of course need to be private (Non-Forum) communication between Planiside and these community moderators outlining responsibilities such as what constitutes a ban and the criteria for assessment for banning and escalation to bring it to the attention of Planetside staff.

This way you keep spam to a minimum and allow Planetside to create product with minimal distraction over such matters!

This is just an idea.  ;D

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel
 



                     
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Oshyan on August 18, 2011, 05:29:17 PM
Putting some volunteer moderators in place is not a bad idea. Something to think about.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Tangled-Universe on August 18, 2011, 06:53:35 PM
Quote from: Oshyan on August 18, 2011, 05:29:17 PM
Putting some volunteer moderators in place is not a bad idea. Something to think about.

- Oshyan

Indeed a good idea.
How many registrations are made each day, ~20?
Also for other things moderators could be of help, like removing spam-topics if they still manage to seep through.
Stuff like that.

I'd volunteer, of course :)
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Oshyan on August 18, 2011, 06:55:26 PM
We have between 50 and 100 registrations a day right now. I estimate maybe 10% are not spam.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: TheBadger on August 19, 2011, 04:22:54 AM
You guys must be on top of it though, because I have only run into that kind of crap once or twice, so far.

Also, planetside is only three people? Really? Thats rather impressive.
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Kadri on August 19, 2011, 05:28:30 AM
Quote from: TheBadger on August 19, 2011, 04:22:54 AM
You guys must be on top of it though, because I have only run into that kind of crap once or twice, so far.
...

It is really bad recently...

Quote from: TheBadger on August 19, 2011, 04:22:54 AM
...
Also, planetside is only three people? Really? Thats rather impressive.

Look here , TheBadger:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/24/40/
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: TheBadger on August 20, 2011, 07:12:11 AM
Also, kill the trolls, their just as bad as spammers if not worse!

and "Oshyan also maintains independent websites supporting Terragen and 3D graphics in general." what are some of these websites? Are they open to me?

Thanks kardi
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Cyber-Angel on August 20, 2011, 09:08:40 PM
Quote from: TheBadger on August 20, 2011, 07:12:11 AM
Also, kill the trolls, their just as bad as spammers if not worse!

and "Oshyan also maintains independent websites supporting Terragen and 3D graphics in general." what are some of these websites? Are they open to me?

Thanks kardi

Well there is Terragen.org formally Ashundar is a one of the aforementioned sites and yes it is open for you to join I happen to be a moderator there, nice community, but has be a bit quite of late! As to the others, well I don't know.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel    
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: TheBadger on August 20, 2011, 11:51:01 PM
Cyber-Angel, thanks man :D I'll bookmark it now.
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Oshyan on August 23, 2011, 12:04:31 AM
Mainly that refers to Terragen.org though also 3dSpeedMachine.com (http://www.3dspeedmachine.com/) (benchmarking) and me-dem.org (http://www.me-dem.org) (project to model Tolkien's Middle Earth terrain).

I'll be testing some new anti-spam registration mods shortly. Hopefully they will help.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Oshyan on August 24, 2011, 03:02:14 PM
We have installed a new "are you human?" test and it looks like it's helping a fair amount. See stats for yesterday on new registrations vs. previous days: http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?action=stats

Hopefully it will hold. We did this once before and it looks like that one was figured out by the spammers. No doubt this one will eventually too...

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: jo on August 24, 2011, 10:25:11 PM
Hi,

Quote from: TheBadger on August 19, 2011, 04:22:54 AM
Also, planetside is only three people? Really? Thats rather impressive.

Four people really, including John McLusky. We don't make a secret of being a small company, as you can see from the About Us page on the website:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/24/40/

Regards,

Jo
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: TheBadger on August 25, 2011, 04:37:44 AM
Quote from: jo on August 24, 2011, 10:25:11 PM
Hi,

Quote from: TheBadger on August 19, 2011, 04:22:54 AM
Also, planetside is only three people? Really? Thats rather impressive.

Four people really, including John McLusky. We don't make a secret of being a small company, as you can see from the About Us page on the website:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/24/40/

Regards,

Jo

Thanks jo lol. Yeah, I finely read that page the other day. And it is rather impressive that only 4 people made and manage all of this. Secret? No way, I would tell everyone, people love underdogs. Also, if you ever screwed anything up real bead you could just say, hey, theres only 4 of us ;) :P
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: dandelO on August 28, 2011, 12:59:15 PM
Now it's actually embedded hardcore porn images/videos in Marc's Black Oak download thread in file sharing. Up until now, I've only seen links and such in spam posts. It's much worse now.
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Oshyan on August 28, 2011, 01:06:48 PM
There have been porn spam topics before unfortunately. I think what's getting through know are real people, which is much harder to defend against without making all registrations require approval. Even then it's hard to know before someone posts. Some amount of spam is likely to be a problem for any popular forum. The best long-term defense is having good moderator coverage.

- Oshyan
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Tangled-Universe on August 28, 2011, 01:53:48 PM
We can only make it harder and especially more time-consuming for spammers to register on the forums, but stopping it completely won't be possible I'm afraid.

A kind of "symptomatic treatment" would be to give a small limited number of users some extra privileges to delete those forum messages and spammers, since speed of response mostly relies on the time-zone the moderator lives.
It would at least make the forums look clean at most if not all of the time with offensive material very quickly being deleted and spammers removed, so in the meantime we spend time finding better tools or wait for better tools to be available to prevent this.

Say 1 or 2 extra in the US region, 2-3 for Europe and 2-3 for Asia and you have covered pretty much all the timezones effectively.

What do you think?

Cheers,
Martin
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Pentagular Dark on August 28, 2011, 03:02:58 PM
1-2 for America? I think we're the most messed up, seeing as most of the kids at my middle school are probably more perverted than most people in Europe. Of course, I've never been there and the only European show I've seen was British... (Dr. Who 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 9th 10th 11th) But you know what I'm saying.
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: Tangled-Universe on August 28, 2011, 04:23:11 PM
Doesn't matter...about 3 persons per continent would likely give most possible coverage to be able to monitor the forums on a 24/7 basis...
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: reck on August 29, 2011, 04:16:56 PM
Quote from: jo on August 24, 2011, 10:25:11 PM
Hi,

Quote from: TheBadger on August 19, 2011, 04:22:54 AM
Also, planetside is only three people? Really? Thats rather impressive.

Four people really, including John McLusky. We don't make a secret of being a small company, as you can see from the About Us page on the website:

http://www.planetside.co.uk/content/view/24/40/

Regards,

Jo

I love the bit where it describes Oshyan as a persistent hobbyist.
Title: Re: Inappropriate Topics
Post by: FrankB on August 30, 2011, 06:42:25 AM
passionate, not "persistent"... although persistent would have been funnier :)