New Accounts Limited to Five (5) Posts

[iacas]

In order to curb spam, new accounts are limited to five posts in their first 24 hours of membership. After 24 hours have elapsed, the new account has no other restrictions.

If any legitimate (non-spammer) member bumps into this ceiling, please PM either @mvmac or myself (@iacas).

We'll re-assess this shortly (particularly if the Chinese spam dies down…).

[pganapathy]

cool plan.  anyway, 24 hours is not that bad

[boogielicious]

11 hours ago, iacas said:

In order to curb spam, new accounts are limited to five posts in their first 24 hours of membership.

If anyone runs afoul of this, please PM either @mvmac or myself (@iacas).

We'll re-assess this shortly (particularly if the Chinese spam dies down…).

Thanks. I was going to ask about how we could curb this.

[iacas]

20 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

Thanks. I was going to ask about how we could curb this.

Well, to be really clear, we already curb this. If you get a "1" out of 4 you get to register normally. If you get a 2 or a 3, your account is held for approval. If you get a 4, you're simply not allowed to register.

I also have a list of IPs (though that's less and less fruitful as spammers are using IPs in Maine, Texas, etc. these days) and a list of disposable email domains that are blocked as well.

It's really not bad. There's a fine line between blocking spammers and making it difficult for legitimate USERS to join.

[turtleback]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Well, to be really clear, we already curb this. If you get a "1" out of 4 you get to register normally. If you get a 2 or a 3, your account is held for approval. If you get a 4, you're simply not allowed to register.

I also have a list of IPs (though that's less and less fruitful as spammers are using IPs in Maine, Texas, etc. these days) and a list of disposable email domains that are blocked as well.

It's really not bad. There's a fine line between blocking spammers and making it difficult for legitimate USERS to join.

Could you expand on the bold part?  It has been so long ago since I joined I do not know what those numbers relate to.  Thanks.

[newtogolf]

What if we prevented new users from starting new threads for 24 hours rather than limiting their posts?  Most of the spam I've seen is in newly created threads with the topic of their spam.

[jamo]

15 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

What if we prevented new users from starting new threads for 24 hours rather than limiting their posts?  Most of the spam I've seen is in newly created threads with the topic of their spam.

The problem with that is new members are encouraged to create "Welcome" threads.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, turtleback said:

Could you expand on the bold part?  It has been so long ago since I joined I do not know what those numbers relate to.  Thanks.

Yes but why? It's a rating level of how legitimate the account is.

[Abu3baid]

Well, I didn't see any spam accounts today so something worked.

[turtleback]

22 hours ago, iacas said:

Yes but why? It's a rating level of how legitimate the account is.

Just curiosity.  I'm a numbers guy and when I see numbers I like to know what they mean  But no big deal in any case.

[iacas]

18 minutes ago, turtleback said:

Just curiosity.  I'm a numbers guy and when I see numbers I like to know what they mean  But no big deal in any case.

Yeah, there's not much insight into how those numbers are derived, but I imagine they likely factor in things like the IP address (whether previously used by a spammer) and other things.

We're slowly building up a list of disposable email domains, but then again it's not a great help because most spammers register for gmail addresses.

I will do everything possible to keep registration pretty open as I don't want to limit anyone from being able to register or having a waiting period for a moderator to manually approve them or anything.

[turtleback]

23 hours ago, iacas said:

Yeah, there's not much insight into how those numbers are derived, but I imagine they likely factor in things like the IP address (whether previously used by a spammer) and other things.

We're slowly building up a list of disposable email domains, but then again it's not a great help because most spammers register for gmail addresses.

I will do everything possible to keep registration pretty open as I don't want to limit anyone from being able to register or having a waiting period for a moderator to manually approve them or anything.

Thanks for the explanation.

[iacas]

There seems to be a bug with this. A member with several days could still only post five times per day.