SPAM posts are getting so frequent now

[WAS]

Having new 'users' approved before they can hit the site with spam may be a hassle and problematic too, as a spammer can just apply, get approven (why not?), and spam along. A little more work, but still possible. But it might deter a lot of them.
I actually don't know if bots can spam, or would they be real people? Well, people

I don't know if you're replying to me, but that's not how it works. Users under X post would be in a "New Users" or "Welcoming" group. Anything they post will be up for approval. If those posts aren't approved, their post count doesn't go up, and they never leave that group, and nothing they post goes public.

All these posts-for-approval show up in the moderation center to be easily seen and reviewed, by moderators. Privately.

If they're an actual user, and their post isn't copypasta from the forum, or nonsense, their post would be approved, going public, and counting towards their post count to later become a full-fledged user without the suspicion of spam. Naturally, it should be up to the moderation staff to take care of these things, and get them down as quick as possible, or have posts approved like in many facebook groups and forums these days. The latter is always the best as you don't expose your users, and guests to malware, phishing, etc, that could harm them, and harm the reputation of your website with rating services and antivirus services.

PS Nice to meet you, Cris! Welcome to the staff (though I'm not sure if this is recent or not and you've just been lurking around behind the scenes).

Hi ! I've been lurking for a few weeks now whilst we've been ramping up on other things. I'll be move visible moving forward. We are trying to push many things forward at once, the tutorials and new videos are one part. Good things are coming ! It's really wonderful seeing this vibrant community that understands TG so well, and also understands how much work it is to keep pushing forward. Dealing with spam is such a low energy sink hole, so we're up for any suggestions on how to deal with it.
Thanks all !

crisb.

Yeah, it sounds like a whole new gearbox was installed over there at Planetside. Things are looking nice with the website.

[Dune]

I see. I thought a new user would have to apply for 'membership' at staff/moderator first, but the method you described seems more logical. I'm not into that sorta thing at all.

[N-drju]

The recent attack on the "Terragen Discussion" section has been way too much really.

I'd be happy to aid in clearing that mess if I only had privileges to do so. If there is no landlord on the premises, what difference does it make to leave the housekeeping to the tenants so to say?

I have an impression that the forum has been, sadly, forsaken by the Owner. Let us do the maintenance then.

Anyone wants to join Freemasons? My god...

[WAS]

Sorry, I just got my 5G brain implant installed, and my penis enlargement arrived today. Little behind...

But seriously...

[N-drju]

Ok, @crisb, @Matt I'm outta here until you fix the SPAM.

[WAS]

Seems safe browsing organizations are starting to take notice too. ADMINUSLabs which is a cyber-threat research and intelligence firm flagged the site for Malware links.

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/d965686b4c876873ae4f860ac779fa929e3a650545c462ce0917f8b472fd7b41/detection
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/url/34a6047f2c90d3e41839795fbfbdb0ce62d7a15d19e6af23d5d881e9b7e5f1b7/detection

[raymoh]

BTW: @Matt hasn't been heard from in this forum for a long time....
What's going on? Can it be that @N-drju is right: This forum is hardly maintained anymore.
Or is @Matt and his staff busy elsewhere?

[WAS]

Or is @Matt and his staff busy elsewhere?

I think this. There are big changes going on with the release of the tutorials, and I think some stuff going on with assets for new releases of Terragen, plus the whole new iterations of Terragen plus Terragen 5 I have a suspicion is also being worked on as it should be on the horizon with how things have gone up to V4. Plus there is the new Terrain canvas tool as well. I think Matt is very busy, if not maybe even overwhelmed. Last thing he needs really is us getting mad cause at him or Terragen cause of some forum spam, though I think there are some simple steps to fix this once in for off, if he or someone with access could get on.

[N-drju]

I'll be rather brutal now, but I paid some hard-earned money to get Matt's software.

As his customer, I have all the right to be dissatisfied with the service, or lack thereof, that he provides. This includes my support requests (none of which have been tended to by the Staff themselves) as well as this forum's state.

Of course I mean the latest support stuff.

[crisb]

Hello guys,

Thank you all for your patience and input. We are working hard behind the scenes on lots of things, and some things do fall through the cracks.
We have been looking at the various ways on how we can improve things, and are always happy that the community wants to help also.

So, we'll be making changes as soon as possible, however this kind of forum platform is older, and so we are also considering transferring things to keep everyones posts etc, but be functioning under a platform that doesn't need so much work to keep spammers at bay.

Whilst I've been going in and removing people and posts, I've clearly been missing large swaths of spam, and I'll totally take the blame for that.

I'll totally say this is something we can and should do better, but in the best case, we should have a platform that doesn't need so much maintenance.

Please bear with us, we hear you, and we're aiming to do better.

thanks for your patience,

crisb.

[WAS]

we should have a platform that doesn't need so much maintenance.

I really think some nice frameworks out there with good security would be a great pick. I'm not really suggesting build one as that's quite the task, but maybe something built on one. I've suggested HumHub before, it's built on the Yii2 Framework which is powerful, and secure.

Have a look and maybe bring it up in a chat

https://www.yiiframework.com/

https://www.humhub.com/en

HumHub is modern enough, without being over the top in needless features (unless you want them). I did extensive development for it in the past and helped the community get started and it's evolved a lot. Some of the enterprise iterations I've seen in use are pretty impressive.

Discourse has been mentioned before, which I do find pretty nice, but I feel it lacks some modern features everyone is used to, and in fact devolves into older bulletin board style posting which most users are deliberately shying away from as boring or what not. So there is the one side where it is right to the point, and the other side where it looks cheap / basic presentation (reminds me of the 90s) / and unappealing to some.

There is also a issue with the very problem we are trying to avoid... and that's spam. In fact they are using similar tactics as here with post editing and such, and this is pretty amazing considering it used to be praised for it's sandboxing and security. But with popularity comes easily obtainable scripting.