AgnosticWeb.com - Note to dhw about spam:

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

Neil — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:57:11 +0000

There are a couple of spam prevention measures which can be used through the forum, one of which uses an akimet api key from http://akismet.com. This seems to have good press for Wordpress forums, I'll chat to DHW and see what we can come up with.

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

DragonsHeart — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:57:27 +0000

I see one slight problem with Tony's suggestion. There are some of us who are very regular readers who only post occasionally, like myself. If only the regular posters are not moderated, it would leave those of us who are still regulars in the lurch. What about setting up a captcha at the log-in like many chat clients do. It doesn't catch ALL the spam bots, but it gets most of them.

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

dhw — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 12:56:52 +0000

Many thanks for your comments and suggestions ... especially Tony's noble offer to kneecap the idiots who are trying to wreck the site. At present I'm logging on three or four times a day to delete the spam, but of course it accumulates during the night and clogs up the list of 40 last entries. It would be interesting to know how Romansh and Agnostics International deal with it.-I'm still waiting for Neil to get back to me. He is our technical wizard, but maybe he's away at the moment. We might have to get all contributors to register, as I think it's possible then to block posts from the undesirables. I don't like forcing folk to do this, as I myself am extremely wary of any site that demands personal details, but it may be the only way ... at least temporarily. And as far as I know, all our regular writers have already registered anyway. But let's see what Neil suggests.

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

Balance_Maintained — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:40:15 +0000

You could also do it slightly differently by setting permissions, so that the regular posters are unmoderated, while new posters have to go through the moderation process until they have established that they are not spam bots.

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

xeno6696 — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:18:34 +0000

It really has gotten bad recently. What a shame. You want I should break their kneecaps, Boss? :P Seriously, though, it is rather distracting. > > Is adding moderation expensive?-It shouldn't be... all it means is that dhw would have to read every post from non-registered users and approve/deny. There's few of those. And he reads everything anyways. -From a technical perspective it depends on exactly what kind of web framework his admin uses.

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

Balance_Maintained — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 18:33:41 +0000

Not compared with my kneecap breaking services :) -Actually, it can be free. Any of the regular posters can given moderator privileges. It all depends on how it is set up.

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

David Turell — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:59:47 +0000

It really has gotten bad recently. What a shame. You want I should break their kneecaps, Boss? :P Seriously, though, it is rather distracting.-Is adding moderation expensive?

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

Balance_Maintained — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 15:36:40 +0000

It really has gotten bad recently. What a shame. You want I should break their kneecaps, Boss? :P Seriously, though, it is rather distracting.

Note to dhw about spam: (reply)

dhw — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:46:42 +0000

MATT: I'd strongly consider moving to a moderated board format, so that only posts that are not spam would make it through.-Thanks, Matt. I've passed this on to Neil (who administers the site). It's really got to the stage where we have to put a stop to it.

Note to dhw about spam:

xeno6696 — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 11:31:57 +0000

I'd strongly consider moving to a moderated board format, so that only posts that are not spam would make it through.