Spam Ban

1. 65

   darksideposted 14 years ago

   Any chance that perhaps a few Hubbers from each of the timezones around the world (if possible) could be given the power to suspend accounts and delete posts of spammers?
   
   Not to get involved in any moderation of the site, but to be able to take out the trash of 'beyond a shadow of a doubt' spam bots.
   
   There's one in the forum now posting every 30 seconds. It's happening a lot lately.

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      kirstenblogposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Sure would be nice to have a weekend spam destroyer! I wouldn't mind a pic of one of those either!

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         EmpressFelicityposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         

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   2. 67

      emievilposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I definitely second this motion / suggestion.

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   3. 0

      cosetteposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      that's a good idea, especially on the weekend when the HubTeam is off.

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      1. 84

         Aya Katzposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Is the HubTeam off on weekends? All of them?

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         1. 71

            Ultimate Hubberposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Seems like it.

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         2. 71

            relacheposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            From what I've observed, there is some moderation on weekends, but it's much reduced from the usual weekday amount, and the spammers have learned to hit the forums hard during the US evening and overnight hours when it's clear there's none.

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   4. STAFF

      pauldeedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      We've augmented our existing forum spam control system so that these types of accounts should be shutdown fairly quickly as long as enough of their posts are reported using the usual mechanism.   This empowers any community member in good standing to help us handle spam.
      
      We agree that there may also be some advantage to empowering specific trusted users with additional tools.   It's something we've been considering for a while, and will continue to consider as HubPages grows.

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      1. 77

         frogdroppingposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Good to know Paul. The software should help clear up some of the crud, providing hubbers send the reports in (you listening hubbers?!). I think Darkside's idea is also a good way to help combat spammers, in the event that some will drop through the net.

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      2. 71

         relacheposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Okay gang, this makes it crystal clear. 
         
         If people simply report spam when they see it instead of wishing someone would do something about it, the spam will get taken care of promptly.

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2. 78

   kirstenblogposted 14 years ago

   I thought I smelled a sock puppet!
   
   Thought about posting, is that a sock puppet in your avatar or are you just happy to see me?

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   1. 65

      darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Spam bots aren't sockpuppets.

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3. 71

   Ultimate Hubberposted 14 years ago

   OR, account of a person whose posts are reported as spam a certain number of times in a certain period should be suspended and later someone from the staff members can reinstate the account if the person wasn't spamming?

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      LOT2DOposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      This is a better suggestion!

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   2. 65

      darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      That would work too. But it would require a bit of work in the backend to get that working properly.

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      1. 71

         Ultimate Hubberposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         It won't take much of programming.
         
         if(reportedPostsOfxyz > 20 && ReportingPeriod < 24 hours)
         {
         Suspend the account;
         }
         
         I suggested this so that HP wouldn't have to trust some of the hubbers, one or two of whom might misuse the powers on some occasion.

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         1. 59

            The10DollarMarkposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Yeah, but what happens if some of the spammers catch wind of this? Then they could go off and report 20 of a good hubber's posts.
            
            So that formula also needs to have a cap as to how many reports per account/ip count towards the 20 total.

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            1. 71

               Ultimate Hubberposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               exactly or we can add another condition in the if statement and that will be (JoinedSince > 6 months) ... spammers normally don't wait that much to spam. You must have noticed that those spam accounts are not even a day old.

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            2. 0

               Ghost32posted 14 years agoin reply to this

               If I understand Darkside correctly, spammers couldn't turn the tables--because only very carefully selected, trusted Hubbers would get the authority to delete posts. 
               
               It would likely be scary for HP to do that, though, or at least time consuming during the vetting process. 
               
               Still a solid idea, methinks.

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               1. 64

                  Faybe Bayposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  How many of the current spammers posts have been reported, even his profile is spam, and you can't flag the profile.

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               2. 65

                  darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  HubPages HQ know who they can trust. And the 'power' would only be to suspend accounts and delete posts of obvious commercial bulk spam. If a selected spam moderator ever misused the powers, they'd have the ability removed immediately.
                  
                  There'd be no need for the moderator to make a song or dance about. Just clean up the mess and move on.
                  
                  No badges, no bragging rights. If a person publicly states that they've got the permissions set to delete spam posts, they will have the ability removed immediately.
                  
                  It will be a thankless job. But spread over as many timezones as possible so the spammers get kicked to the curb as quickly and silently as possible.
                  
                  Moderating the site for personal attacks or other rule infractions would still be HubPages job.

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                  1. 71

                     Ultimate Hubberposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                     Darkside, why are you still in favor of moderators when quite a few options have been discussed above.
                     
                     HP will have to trust 8-10 people to moderate forums. Secondly it is easy to design an algorithm with a few constraints which can restrict spam while HP staff is not available. It is easy to check if the post being reported contains hyperlink(s) or same message being sent again and again etc.

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                     1. 65

                        darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                        Ultimate Hubber, why is it a problem for me to put forward my thoughts?

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                        1. 71

                           Ultimate Hubberposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                           LOL, that obviously is not a problem. Nobody said so, I just asked why is it so, but if you don't want to give the reasons that is no big deal, nor a problem for me. I'm out of this thread now. Bye!

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                           1. 65

                              darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                              It will be up to HubPages HQ whether or not they wish to read this thread and if they do if they find any of the suggestions useful. We don't need to come to a consensus and have everyone in favour of the one idea for HP HQ to adopt it.

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4. 77

   frogdroppingposted 14 years ago

   There was a good few yesterday morning and all I could do was report them. They hung around most of the day (my time) and messed the forum up. I badly wanted to just delete them.

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5. 81

   earnestshubposted 14 years ago

   From Australia, I have to wait until HP is back on board before the spam I report gets found. I would love to see the time zone idea working.

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6. 69

   thisisoliposted 14 years ago

   I reported the spam when it was coming in Yesterday, I wouldn't mind doing the job particularly, however in less than a month I will be on US time which kinda it redundant!

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7. 71

   relacheposted 14 years ago

   Limiting the number of posts a person with zero hubs is allowed to make, or having a certain amount of flags on a post automatically hide it until admin can perform a review would also be options for dealing with this sort of behavior.

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      livewithrichardposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I like this and Ultimate Hubber's idea.

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      wyanjenposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      This is the best suggestion IMO.
      

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      1. 81

         earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         That does seem like a good idea. I contacted the Beijing site and got a nonsense reply.

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            quicksandposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Nonsense reply? Well blame it on Google translator.

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               earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Yep! I don't think it was from an English speaker, despite their hub being in English.

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8. 59

   Ohmaposted 14 years ago

   Wonderful Idea I really hope that any of the above can happen.

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9. 69

   thisisoliposted 14 years ago

   Yeah if their was a script to automatically disable accounts less than a week old if flagged by more than 10 users it should get rid of most spammers without too much trouble.
   
   It should flag them for review as well though, just to avoid accidental/malicious bans.

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   1. 65

      darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Even if there were a flood control, if an account is less than an half an hour old and makes 15+ posts. It's suspended and put in a moderation queue.

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      1. 71

         relacheposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Some forums filters that act like the ones in action for the comment capsules would be nice.

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10. 70

    ThoughtfulSpotposted 14 years ago

    Great suggestions... glad to see other people talking about it.  I reported quite a few last night and this morning, and it was definitely getting annoying to see them keep popping up.

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11. 71

    sunforgedposted 14 years ago

    Not to long ago it was suggested that the forums could benefit from the type of functionality that yahoo answers and youtube uses, a thumbs down or flag option, if a certain number of hubbers mark the post as spam or in violation it would automatically be hidden from sight. If this happens frequently to a single account than it would effect that account sitewide - no visible posts
    
    One of the hubadmin I believe Paul, said they were developing a very similar functionality, if YA and youtube can do it Im sure hubs can figure it out also.

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    1. 79

       skyfireposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       We've to keep religious and political forums away from this option as you can see this type of thumbs up/down feature could be misused.
       
       Maybe few elite members if allowed for sending replies/thread to spam queue and allowed to give 1-hour infraction for spammer or issuing 10 minute reply-delay for spammers is one option HP can use.

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       1. 71

          sunforgedposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          actually the religion forums would be perfect, it seems many threads are started by someone with some sense of belief who wants to speak and converse about that topic.
          
          Along comes a few atheists, non-believers /dissenters who just attempt to stir up trouble and disagree (even if its intelligent disagreement)
          
          In most well moderated forums, and even in a personal conversation, such people would be ejected from the conversation for being "off topic" ...rightfully so.
          
          If in the religion forums people want to discuss a topic in a positive manner and others are unwilling they can be "ignored" ...if they see they are frequently being blocked from posting within the thread perhaps less problems would escalate to childish insults from each side.
          
          It applies well to those who think "thread-jacking" is funny ..ive never seen anyone with a speck of wit do it, but anyways months later that threadjacking is just useless text inside of a thread of conversation that may otherwise been easily navigated by a knowledge seeker.
          
          Before the "ignore" option effected someones sitewide ability to post it would probably have to be in a N amount of different threads. Say user SPAM, is ignored to the point of being hidden in 5 unique threads in a 48 hour period (the weekend) ...or something similar
          
          im muttering outside of the scope of the original thread myself now though..goodbye

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12. 65

    darksideposted 14 years ago

    We've got a live one now. 24 minutes, 10 posts (and counting) and the post I just saw had a word count of 8389 words.

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       relacheposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       I see it too, man...

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13. 81

    earnestshubposted 14 years ago

    Yep, we have had this lunatic for two days now, still posting from the same url.

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14. 0

    StormRyderposted 14 years ago

    WoW, it's not just a bit of spam either..
    It's huge!!!!!

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    1. 71

       relacheposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Yeah, and the websites in question are owned by a Beijing company so most likely this is going to go on for far longer than we all wish.

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15. 0

    SirDentposted 14 years ago

    Some of those posts have been removed already. Not sure why they haven't removed the account and banned it.

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    1. 81

       earnestshubposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       I agree. Why if he uses the same url hasn't he been bumped off his server either?

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    2. 65

       darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Seems it's been deleted in this thread now too.
       
       Not sure what's happening. But they should suspend or delete the account first before deleting the posts otherwise they'll just be chasing their tail.

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       1. 0

          SirDentposted 14 years agoin reply to this

          The account is stuill active. I have reported many of them and asked in the second one if it was possible to give authroity to some to remove such posts.

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16. 65

    darksideposted 14 years ago

    And here he is sticking his ugly head in this thread.

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17. 65

    darksideposted 14 years ago

    It's still alive and spamming other threads while a spam post here and there are getting deleted.
    
    Between the bumping of threads and having to scroll through the thousands of useless words and then us simply discussing the annoyance of the spammer, the worthwhile discussion is getting buried.
    
    It makes the forum a monumental waste of time. Unless something is done about it I think I'll have to avoid the forums on weekends and during the week outside of normal HP HQ business hours.

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    1. 0

       SirDentposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       It seems to post on active threads. It is like it sees the activity and goes there.

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       SirDentposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       It also seems to be picking up speed.

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18. 71

    relacheposted 14 years ago

    The pattern last night was to post about 30-40 spam postings and then make a new persona and start over.

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    1. 0

       SirDentposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       They most likely will use the same IP. If the IP is banned they most likely will not come back. Of course your IP can be changed also.

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19. 58

    flread45posted 14 years ago

    This sounds to me like a government takeover.
    Talk about the Democrats being socialists!!!
    Apply for a job at Hubpages.

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20. 65

    darksideposted 14 years ago

    Excellent stuff!

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21. 74

    Richieb799posted 14 years ago

    Never mind mr sock puppet, his cousin mr sneaker avatar was in one forum the other day, I reported him and they told him to jog on.. and before I knew it he was outta here

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22. 0

    Crazdwriterposted 14 years ago

    I like that idea good job paul! i am sick of the spam too so thank you for doing that for us.

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