• Off Topic

  • Forum Management: Add Limits for Posts?

Meta topic for managing this forum - is it possible to add some type of limitation on posts to combat spam?

It's been true for a while, that spammers can simply create an account on the GOS forum, and flood the feed with new posts. These posts persist until a moderator can ban the account & remove the posts.

The forum does become fairly unusable while this is underway. Users can't easily find relevant discussions when three spam posts are produced a minute

As of late, the issue appears to be worsening. There is a single bad actor whom seems to have automated the process. Close to nightly, a new account floods the feed with near identical spam. This forum is largely unusable when it happens

Id like to know whether, among the active users in good standing, there is a compelling reason to avoid adding mitigations. For example, Id propose there is no reason a good-faith poster should need to post more than 3 or 4 times an hour

    I agree there should be a limit to new posts

    gristle-cause There is a single bad actor whom seems to have automated the process.

    It's 1 phrase copy and pasted. The new posts would not stop after 10 if it was automated.

      gristle-cause Close to nightly,

      It is all the time, night time you see it more because it's removed slower.

      I advocate for moderators approving the first post of any account. The spam gets removed quick, therefore the first posts could get approved quick. It's privacy focused and will stop anything but human engineered spam.

      It could also allow removing email requirements because users will be judged by the quality of their new posts, rather than the personal info they disclose.

      By quality, I'm not advocating moderators don't approve normal posts, just saying human, non-troll posts.

        zxzxzxzxzxzxzx this is the aforementioned bad actor

        GrapheneOS is a tool that, among other use cases, provides critical security & privacy to high-risk individuals. Your actions are actively making it more difficult for these users to seek guidance

        If you are not a state-sponsored agitator, you are indirectly contributing towards their efforts to make security & privacy less accessible. Find a healthier outlet for your frustrations

            zxzxzxzxzxzxzx Youre that butthurt? If you got banned it was probably right. Youre just another one of the weirdos on this forum

              I apologize for shifting this discussion towards shaming one particular bad actor. Carrousel is right, such discourse is likely useless

              Let's focus discussion on potential steps that could make the forum more robust against all spam

              zxzxzxzxzxzxzx They wont give a shit about your little weirdo posts. Theyll just keep banning you HAHAHAHHA. You cant even make you spam a little bit funny. Whats even the point...

                Containing the spam to this singular thread is, in a sense, a solution...

                *This comment itself is also off-topic spam

                zxzxzxzxzxzxzx wont you feel like shit when in the end when you give up itll have amounted to nothing because they wont change anything, they wont reply to you and the whole forum will forget you in a day

                  Carrousel7956
                  I agree, but I think the use of regexes should be used in tandem as a defense-in-depth measure.

                  Obviously, this regex shouldn't be kept public.

                    Carrousel7956 there's a counterpoint worth voicing, whether the burden of manually approving every forum user would be an unreasonable ask of the moderation team. I cant really speak towards what that would look like from their end

                        gristle-cause I also can't speak to it but my idea is only the first post of a new account, which is not many and could be quickly eyeballed in a unified interface. Many forums like Privacy guides.net, monero.forum use this technique.

                        I don't even know if it's possible on Flarum but I assume so because it's rather basic.

                          Carrousel7956 Is there much difference between a bot and the spammer, if u know that the parents are most likely cousins?

                            I've archived this thread in wayback machine, megalodon.jp, and archive.today/.ph because it will, rightly so, be completely removed. But I find the conversation with the spammer interesting.

                            My Bitcoin offer was completely just to get them to stop spamming and get more insight and it worked.

                              Thank God flarum is easy to archive compared to discourse, that shit is a nightmare and it often contains important info to be archived.

                              Can't even copy paste a whole discourse thread let alone archive it.

                              Carrousel7956 My Bitcoin offer was completely just to get them to stop spamming and get more insight and it worked.

                              another 'mommy's detective' clown. You could simply ask.

                                  keycap_puller it's not a bot, it would have to be a GitHub level captcha which would fucking suck iykyk to do anything and it would 99% harm regular new users and would discourage joining.

                                    zvvvvv

                                    ok, have you tried mediation?

                                    What country are you from?

                                    Is English your native language?

                                    Why do you think you're right while 100% of other people interacting with you think you're in the wrong?

                                    What are your other hobbies?

                                    Have you contributed anything to society?

                                    How much Bitcoin to stop :)?

                                    What drives you?

                                      keycap_puller mainstream captcha implementations have ironically themselves becomes enemies to privacy - Google, for example, has begun gatekeeping the internet behind Play-authorized devices by requiring verification through a Play Store app

                                      There is probably a privacy-friendly captcha implementation, I havent seen it yet