Could you moderate first posts to stop the flood of spam?
Recently, I haven’t been reading the Q&A on GBA, because it’s always full of spam. Could I suggest that you moderate the first several posts by any non GBA Pro user who hasn’t posted before? The idea being that you either have to pay for a subscription or post three moderated and approved posts before you get unfettered access to the forums.
I’ve seen this system successfully used in several other forums. I understand that the additional work of moderating first posts isn’t necessarily attractive, but the status quo isn’t good. You might even be able to avoid some work by having volunteer GBA community members to serve as moderators for initial posts.
–John
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Replies
Great Suggestion John! That is a similar process I see on Online Forums in several places.
+1
I think Martin has been at a conference this past week so there hasn't been anyone to notify the webmaster.
I sent an email to the webmaster.
In Martin's absence, we've been doing our best to monitor the site and remove spam as it shows up. It means multiple sweeps per day. We apologize for the intrusion of these spammer. Thanks for the suggestion.
Agreed that sweeping spam is not as effective as blocking it. It's gotten really out of hand. I know you guys have a 'CAPTCHA' system for logins, but it's not doing the job. Does the signup process require email verification and CAPTCHA?
Yes, anyone who registers at GBA must reply to an email verification.
Great suggestion, and agree something must be done. It will be the difference between whether I stay a paying member or drop off. Thanks.
I too hope something is done.
What I don't understand is what the spammers get out of doing this?? Many of these spam posts don't even include links, so it is not like they are trying to get people to click on links to other sites...
For the people who are finding this annoying, it seems that if you browse the "recent comments" page the spam rarely shows up, even though it shows up on the "recent comments" box on the home page.
https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/recent-comments
It must be very time consuming and annoying for the administrators. I do find it strange it continues to affect Taunton sites when you rarely see it on others anymore.
"Yes, anyone who registers at GBA must reply to an email verification."
I just signed up, and I wasn't required to reply to an email verification. I was surprised by that lack of a security measure. And although their is a wealth of information here, it's a little disappointing that this is the topic of my first post. Hope it gets worked out.
Great at building science, We will take a D for computer science.
To GBA readers,
I was on vacation for a week. I'm back.
I agree completely that the spam situation has gotten out of control. Something changed recently, and I hope that our technical team can figure out why the usual spam control filters are no longer working. We're sorry for the unacceptable situation on the Q&A pages.
I'd like to thank Scott Gibson and others who valiantly deleted spam posts while I was on vacation. I hope readers whose patience has been tried stick around as we fix this problem.
Again, apologies to all.