Spam Advertising Threads

mach01

NWP '19, USAFA '24
5-Year Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2018
Messages
108
I can't help noticing there's been a lot of spam advertising threads that have been popping up in the last few weeks. I've probably reported about 30 of them and appreciate the moderation team's speediness with dealing with them. With that being said, since there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, perhaps some new policies could be put into place to limit the amount of spam posted. It looks like fake temp accounts are used to create a single post right after the account is activated. Maybe a way to combat the bot system is have something like a 24 hours posting restriction. A CAPTCHA screening might also be a good addition.
 
Good Morning,

Thank you for the feedback. The back-and-forth effort between spammers and websites will continue to evolve as each side develops measures to circumvent the other. We take a number of measures to reduce spam registration and posting and there is always a tradeoff between blocking spam and having a high false positive rate or making the registration process too difficult. While some spam will inevitably get through, a large number of posts and registrations are blocked before they even make it to the forum. Regarding CAPTCHA, one of the issues is that in many cases a human is registering a spam account, so it doesn't work. However, it can create a barrier for new, legitimate registrations.

We appreciate the opportunity to shed some light on this important issue and will continue to evaluate our procedures to provide the best experience possible.

-TN
 
Pretty sure no one is more annoyed with spammers than the admin’s who have to deal with them. I’ve not noticed an increase in spam myself.

Now if there’s a way to prevent trolls? That’s a whole other thing. Although they are usually good for a laugh 😂
 
Can you put a Captcha on the posting form? Registering accounts may be manual but I have to believe the posts themselves would be automated.
 
I saw that. Registering an account is a one-time event that's worth doing manually, but creating the posts is another matter. Spammers would prefer to automate the multitudinous and repetitive posting tasks, and that would be impeded by CAPTCHA.
 
I saw that. Registering an account is a one-time event that's worth doing manually, but creating the posts is another matter. Spammers would prefer to automate the multitudinous and repetitive posting tasks, and that would be impeded by CAPTCHA.

We strive to maintain a balance between making it difficult to post spam and allowing users to enjoy our community. Unfortunately, users would also be impeded by requiring CAPTCHA for posting, and I think the user experience costs outweigh the benefits.

-TN
 
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