I just deleted/banned more than 30 spammers today. It’s getting a little crazy. Can we try different options for confirming new members?
I know He-Man.org only allows certain email address providers as a registration requirement. It would make it difficult for spammers, but would also be a hassle for actual individuals who want to register.
The other option is to manually confirm each new member. I know this would also be a hassle for us, but if we could have it where we could allow any one of the team/mods to confirm the member, I don’t think it would be too bad.
What do you think? Any other alternatives?
We need to re-think the registration process because the spammers are getting through the captcha and it’s not cool having spam all over the boards
Manny I think we have enough mods to try the manual confirm. I know I’m already in here everyday deleting gobs of spammers, as I’m sure all the mods are, and it’s still out of control. It’d be much faster and easier for us I think to spend that time glancing over the latest members and spotting the legit folks and approving them as there’s not as many of those. It’s worth a try anyway.
Maybe there’s something we can put when people register that tells them membership will pend mod approval due to spammers and if it’s more than a few days, and they’re still not approved, to just email one of us (in case we overlook someone).
It’s not going to keep them from joining, and it’s still going to take some of our time to sort through things, true. But if it takes mod approval the spammers that do join can’t do anything so we don’t have to worry about wearing ourselves out trying to ban them. I think what’s changed now is the influx of them is just overwhelming and far outnumbering at the moment, the actual legitimate users trying to join.
I have found that once spammers learn (and they do learn it seems lol!) that a they can’t use a board to post their crap, eventually it’ll taper off. I used to get a crapload of spam accounts at my board until I went to a similar pre-approval measure. The downfall may be it could put off a few legit users (or a few might slip through the cracks and not get approved) but hopefully most will understand and appreciate the spam-free board
Just my $.02 here, but here’s my thought on the issue:
It will be 10 times easier to try different things now than once the new series gains attention and this site becomes more popular. Plus, I see no reason we can’t do the pre-approval thing. Just make an announcement along the lines of:
‘We at TCL.org want to provide a user-friendly atmosphere where spammers are not welcome. As such, we unfortunately need to verify new accounts before they are allowed to post. While we strive to verify accounts as quickly as possible, please know some users may get missed in the verification process. If you have not been approved within 24 hours, send a PM to: (insert name(s) of whomever can approve an account).’
Or, could we set up a forum that only unverified accounts can see, and allow them to only post there? Then make a sticky locked thread that says basically the same as above, but ask them to post there and we will verify the account. If not verified within 24 hours, post again. That would automatically weed out the accounts that never activated now, so we only need to focus on approving/verifying the accounts that come back and post in that quarantine area.
Merged Post:
Addition: I am noticing spammers with aol.com E-mails. So, unless AOL has changed, they are using accounts that require money too. Case in point: Juicemissy
