ADMIN CLEAN UP

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ADMIN CLEAN UP

Postby bytheMod » Mon Jun 03, 2013 5:17 pm

Hi Guys,

Spam clean up is now about to start. I'll post more as things happen, but here's the plans and changes so far:


WEB LINKS per post cut to ONE:
A first quick change made is to limit the number of "links" in any post to 1. This was previously unlimited, and many spam posts contained multiple web links. It will cut the number of posts in the short term, but is open for review, as it may force spammers to make multiple posts to get all of their links listed.

Regular users generally have no need to list any weblinks, but the "0" setting means unlimited, so the lowest I can set it to is one.


SPAM ACCOUNTS WILL HAVE PASSWORDS CHANGED:
Rather than deleting their accounts, it strikes me it is more disruptive to change their account passwords.
Only one AR account is permitted per email address, so by locking that account it ties up the email address too. If the account is deleted, then a new account could be set up using the same email. The password change should lock out the user, preventing any further posts.
I'm also toying with the idea of a spammer group, which has no posting permissions, and moving users into that group.

If you are a real user caught by this, I'm sorry, but you will have to register again using a new email address and user ID, then PM a moderator to get our attention. We can reset the password to restore the account (sans old posts) but the chances are I'm not going to be causing problems for any genuine forumite.
Big spammers are the prime target for this, and their posts will be deleted as I go.
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Re: ADMIN CLEAN UP

Postby bytheMod » Mon Jun 03, 2013 7:21 pm

Some more tweaks:

CAPTCHA:
Captcha settings have been made more difficult. This might prove extremely frustrating for new valid users, but we're presently getting about 30 new users per day, and I hope it will stem that flood.
Number of failed guesses has been reduced from 5 to 3, before that session locks out and forces the new user to begin registration again. Again to frustrate the spambots, but it might be impossible hassle for real people.

FLOOD INTERVAL:
This regulates the time that must elapse between postings. It was set to 15 seconds, I've upped it to 60 seconds. I don't think anyone ever wants to post things faster than that (and how often do we post twice in succession anyway) but 60 seconds seems reasonable. It might go up to 120 seconds later.

Some of the first spambots have now been passwordchanged. A few have had "posts" deleted too. The server has effortlessly blown away 20,000 posts in the queue (one of the bigger spammer's lists), and about 10% of all posts waiting for approval were deleted in a few minutes work. Laws of diminishing returns will apply, but so far so good. :D
This is only posts waiting, and not new topics waiting, which is about equal in size. I haven't found a suitable way to delete the topics yet.

I have run a few backups, but it seems to keep bombing out early, and I can't tell if everything is there.
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Re: ADMIN CLEAN UP

Postby rob » Sun Jun 09, 2013 12:33 pm

Hi bythemodlee,

Forum is running smooth but there is one little problem: the "view active topics" stopped working, the list is empty. It's not a big problem but it would be nice to get it fixed.
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Re: ADMIN CLEAN UP

Postby bytheMod » Thu Jun 13, 2013 12:52 pm

Hi Rob,

Sorry I neglected you for a while....
A quick google search showed me where the problem might be.
It seems the phpBB software update that PeterT did, includes the unfortunate feature of switching all forums "Active Topics" settings to "off".

I have changed them all to "on", except for the Posterity Leagues under Contests. There's a lot there, and in theory they shouldn't be getting any new posts now.

It seems to work for me now (as admin/mod). Let me know if you have any more trouble.

(Along with my first real thrill in doing something successful as an admin, I've also managed to do a full download backup. Compressed it came to just 20.9Mb).
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Re: ADMIN CLEAN UP

Postby rob » Thu Jun 13, 2013 3:47 pm

It works :D
I have the active topics page as bookmark for the forum, that way I don't miss any posts :wink:
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Re: ADMIN CLEAN UP

Postby bytheMod » Mon Sep 02, 2013 2:46 pm

New user registration seems to have stopped completely. :D

One of the tricks I tried to slow the spam flood, was to increase the time between posts to 60 seconds. And caught myself today, since I couldn't post my new bid and send a PM within that time interval.

So, the "flood interval" has now been reduced to 5 seconds. (ie at least 5 seconds between posts).


Furthermore, I've upped the PM attachment limit to 5, from the previous limit of 2.

So, if you have 3 or 4 solutions to send in, you can attach them individually, instead of zipping or sending multiple PMs. More than 5, you should probably still zip them. :wink:
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Re: ADMIN CLEAN UP

Postby bytheMod » Thu Sep 19, 2013 12:56 am

September 12 might become an infamous day.....

14 new users got in, all trying to sell Kitchen units in the UK.

Thankfully there haven't been any more for the past week, but the blissful peace has been broken. :roll:

Fortunately, it was easy to prune them all, and their posts, in a few seconds. (Thank goodness that functionality is working nicely again.)
They are all limited to just 2 posts anyway, as new users, so it keeps a lid on the spam posting.

But, we might have to change the registration questions......
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