Update on Spam Countermeasures

Today we're testing out auto banning of multiple account registrations. What this means for you, the legit user is really nothing. You shouldn't see a change. What it means for the spammers is that once we ban a spammer, if they go back and create another account, that account will automatically be banned upon creation. This takes the workload of banning spammers off of the mods and takes a preemptive approach rather than a reactive. The potential issue here is that if you the normal user creates a new account, that account may get automatically banned as well. The good news is that all of the mods have access to a forum here that shows every multiple account detection and have been instructed to keep an eye out in case a legit user gets caught by it.

Among the mods, we ban anywhere from 20-50+ spammers a day. Nearly all of these accounts are banned before they're able to post. We don't like spam, we don't want you guys to see spam. If you do, I apologize, it's slipped through the cracks and sadly, even despite all of our efforts, it will happen. Just report it, or contact me or another one of the mods. Like Khatovar said, one of us is "on duty" nearly 24/7. That's why we've picked the mods we have. (Thankfully the days of me solo modding the site are gone :_D)

If you ever have any questions about the site or need anything I'm easy to reach. Click my profile, and click "Contact Information" I'm also in IRC 24/7

I had my Naga all set up with a Spam Slayer profile and everything. ;)

I'm not sure how many registrations a day we get, but I know that by the time I'm done banning for the day, there's only a handful of new legitimate {or at least not obvious enough for me to risk banning} users. But this is much better all around than some of the other measures I've seen on other sites. And now I'll have time to play and post instead of sitting here screaming "YOU SHALL NOT PASS...er...POST!"

Wow...didn't know there were that many bogus accounts being set up here. You guys have apparently done a hell of a job filtering that so far. :)

Cheers,
Ugh

Yeah, though I don't post much, I am on all the time, and I barely see any spam.
And its usually gone within no time.

Great work!

Thanks for all the hard work to keep this a spam-free zone!

Thank you.
Greatly appreciated.

Yes. A Big thank you to all of you for this.

Stephen

Much appreciated.

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/u...-thumbs-up.jpg

Thanks for all the effort to keep the forums clean. Very well done so far!

+1 for the effort the mods put in the forum in general.

Impressive. How do you guys do that? Do the spammers all fill out the form with just junk characters? Or are you matching IPs?

Either way, I see little to no spam, so you guys are doing a wonderful job!

When I'm looking for spammers, the name is an obvious clue. The have some standard behavior, such as listing random words in the Lavishsoft Key input field, listing 123456 in the Multicaster field, actually putting something in the homepage field {you'd be surprised how few legit users list a homepage in their profile!}, putting "man" or their own username in the Biography field.

Once I ban someone for something like that, I would go look for other users listed on the same IP, which is what the new measure is doing automagically.

Very clever. I like it :)

Thank you