How to block spam?

Question

asked 2011-08-24 02:31:07 -0500

Rupreck
75 ● 4 ● 2 ● 11

updated 2012-10-26 22:08:20 -0500

todofixthis

1082 ● 14 ● 17 ● 36
http://www.fiveyearsabroa...

Our subscribers to our askbot powered site (and askbot.org) were hit this morning by a Chennai based spammer who was referred from: http://askbot.org/en/question/28/list-of-askbot-sites.

Our subscribers thus received a message containing this spam and their spam filters will have marked points against us as a spammer.

Two proposals:

Please can an optional method of preventing first time users from posting questions until their account has been approved be added?
(Better) Please can a feature be added to block the automatic forwarding of a message to non admin subscribers (ie. not 'Staff Status') until the new subscriber has reached a certain number of points. That would allow Staff to work with the site to self manage spam. ie. Spam and the user could be deleted quickly by Staff without other users noticing.

Answer 1

1

answered 2011-10-28 15:04:45 -0500

Evgeny

11009 ● 50 ● 84 ● 182
http://askbot.org/

updated 2012-10-26 19:44:21 -0500

Now Akismet module can be enabled, which requires the service key.

@Rupreck, re: karma limit to instant email distribution works approximately this way:

if askbot_settings.MIN_REP_TO_TRIGGER_EMAIL:
    if not (updated_by.is_administrator() or updated_by.is_moderator()):
        if updated_by.reputation < askbot_settings.MIN_REP_TO_TRIGGER_EMAIL:
            #... send the message

Please suggest what else we might do.

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Comments

Well we got spammed again. Akismet requires a paid subscription which is really not helpful in resolving what is fundamentally a design flaw. If this doesn't prevent the email to site members then it is not a good solution. A reputation based solution to prevent the mailout will be most effective.

Rupreck ( 2011-11-10 17:27:54 -0500 )edit

Actually I am not sure you have to pay to use akismet. I think they have a free limit. Re: emails - first posts never get to email, there is a karma limit for that, but admins will still get the notifications. I am not saying that akismet is the only solution, we might develop new features to better control spam.

Evgeny ( 2011-11-10 17:35:54 -0500 )edit

To get around the first post email restriction the spammer posted 3 messages. Akismet require payment unless it is for personal use. In which version did the karma limit on post appear?

Rupreck ( 2011-11-10 19:07:29 -0500 )edit

As an admin I'd suggest to subscribe to all new posts - of course only if the post volume is not too high as for the version, will need to look into the releases, we probably started documenting new features some time after this one was added. We will soon finish new skin, you could try it out perhaps, but I know it will take some effort to get back to your desired looks, we could help by designing a similar layout, we do want to make a few distinctive skins soon.

Evgeny ( 2011-11-11 20:28:13 -0500 )edit

I believe that following two updates will also suppress spam: If karma < 100 (setting), user cannot post links. If karma < 500 (setting), all links are no-follow. Spammers are looking to insert do-follow links. I believe these simple actions will make askbot much less of a target for spam.

Joseph ( 2011-11-16 03:18:45 -0500 )edit

Answer 2

1

answered 2012-04-17 09:08:47 -0500

stevemulligan434
11 ● 1 ● 1

Really I don't know what else you can do to mitigate spam.

1) Please can an optional method of preventing first time users from posting questions until their account has been approved be added?

This suggestion by the OP would have solved my problem. Very surprised this wasn't done before Akismet.

Even something like "require x Karma before asking questions" would work perfectly.

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Comments

1

"require x Karma before asking questions" - Seems like a Catch-22 though; how would new users earn karma if they could not post until they earned enough karma?

todofixthis ( 2012-04-17 12:56:10 -0500 )edit

Yes, preventing users to post will stop spam, but will also unfortunately stop content. Does not seem to be a good solution.

Evgeny ( 2012-04-17 15:34:58 -0500 )edit

There is a grain of wisdom in manually vetting users before they can post in some situations.

Evgeny ( 2012-10-26 19:45:55 -0500 )edit

How to block spam?

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