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We are brainstorming over here on ways we can get the spam at bay. Currently it's been pushed back by some higher priority projects, but we appreciate all the ideas being brought up. Hopefully we can implement something soon. In the meantime, thank you for helping us isolate these accounts :)Make it so a new account can only respond to threads not post new ones until they reach a certain time period or post count?
5 minutes later random threads will be getting filled with spam. Not a great solution, sorry.
If so, a seperate forum named "Decoy" would solve such a problem.
But as i'm thinking...unlikely.
If so, a seperate forum named "Decoy" would solve such a problem.
But as i'm thinking...unlikely.
I had a similar idea posted somewhere here.
Since these spammers have started up I've found loading on the entire messageboard to be pretty hit and miss, with slow loading times and failed loads being the norm. As a general rule when I retry afterwards I find that a massive spam dump just hit. Is anyone else encountering this issue?
Not yet...and hoping i won't have to :/
yup, another wave of spam and another set of slow loads. I don't like spam
Can't Paizo just freeze their accounts for an 30 minutes after every post they make.
2 and a half pages in Forum Games are now claimed :(
You can't stop me! Mwahahahahahahaha
Also, found this while searching on a lark.
No posts, no reviews, just a profile page filled with the same spam.
This profile is still there.
He's ba-ack. 30 posts in 10 minutes so far....
EDIT: 61 posts in 20 minutes.
EDIT again: 90 posts in 30 minutes.
EDIT again: 104 in 40 minutes. He's slowed down. :P
Captain, I'm givin' 'er all she's got!
We do need a better system, Guruji is spitting one of these out every 15 seconds tonight...
I suppose I can't complain about a system that let non humans in...
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Aaaaagggghhhhhh!!!!
I HATE this spammer!
General Discussion is now flooded.
Explains why I was having trouble getting on-site.
I'm starting to wonder if this isn't a deliberate DOS attack.
And...can we get a drop-down that says Die, spammer, DIE!!!!!
Up to 92 just a moment ago.
EDIT 104
Why don't we all just sign this jerk up for some REALLY bad spam, since he's nice enough to give us his contact data.
I feel like we need a phantom/zombie/clone peddler stat block to commemorate Babaji when we finally defeat this most terrible foe.
WTH man?
Is it time to lock ability to make posts for new accounts until some period of time passes or moderate manual unlocks that ability? I hoped that we don't reach that point but it is getting ridiculous... :/
I'm on my Kindle so linking's a pain, but babaaghori.
He's slower than the others.
Just to go out on a limb and try to be constructive, I know that you're limited by the account management software you're using, but is there some kind of "trial user" setting you can use?
- Trial users may make only one post per 30 minutes (adjustable based on complaints from REAL trial users)
- Trial users become real users after 30 days.
I don't know. They could still work past that, but it would at least take effort, and this seems more like someone who's just messing with Paizo because it's easy.
Or we take the "spamming this board isn't worth it" approach and get 50-60 dedicated Paizo users who will open communications via e-mail/phone and just waste oodles of the spammers' time. My favorite-ever phone solicitation was some poor guy who had to read me a 2-minute prepared speech. So I said, "What?" and he was required to repeat it. I said, "What?" again and he hung up on me and never called back.
If we have the time, wasting other peoples' time can be useful.
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Just to go out on a limb and try to be constructive, I know that you're limited by the account management software you're using, but is there some kind of "trial user" setting you can use?
- Trial users may make only one post per 30 minutes (adjustable based on complaints from REAL trial users)
- Trial users become real users after 30 days.
An alternative could be those trial users can't start a new thread for 30 days. I don't know if their bot allows them to post to existing threads.
Just to go out on a limb and try to be constructive, I know that you're limited by the account management software you're using, but is there some kind of "trial user" setting you can use?
- Trial users may make only one post per 30 minutes (adjustable based on complaints from REAL trial users)
- Trial users become real users after 30 days.An alternative could be those trial users can't start a new thread for 30 days. I don't know if their bot allows them to post to existing threads.
Really quite the awesome idea. Thanks, Charles!
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It would probably be most effective to just put a time cap on how often a new account can post. You don't want to punish a new player who's just joined the forum to ask a question, who finds out that they aren't eligible to make even one thread.
While this particular spammer hasn't, others have posted in existing threads rather than starting their own.
Frankly, I like the trial account idea.
I say it again. Make everyone able to remove any post with the specific phone number in it. Easier to change the phone number when it changes than to remove every post for the mods.
Is this the reason the server goblins have been showing up more often?
Assistant Software Developer
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Is this the reason the server goblins have been showing up more often?
I don't believe it is, but I've not investigated it fully. We had some reboots and that mucked some stuff up as well as a small bit of hardware failure. There's been some process changes and basically a lot is going on under the hood that has changed and that may mean some adjustment further down the line. But now that I've got a handle on some other problems I'm going to be looking into that problem a little later today. Basically, the servers are getting overloaded occasionally, and I believe a lot of that is from restarts where we pull in a lot of data right up front. It may mean we have to change the way we are doing that or figure a better way to deal with it or maybe even expand hardware.
But dealing with spammers is also priority and we'll see how that interacts. It could be that there is an excess of traffic being generated from spammers checking our site or something. We are however aware and trying to work though it.
But dealing with spammers is also priority and we'll see how that interacts. It could be that there is an excess of traffic being generated from spammers checking our site or something. We are however aware and trying to work though it.
How do the IP request patterns look? Are you getting unusual waves of hits from Ruritania?
Sorry, let me rephrase that. You may find it useful to look at see if these outages are related to waves of hits from some unusual spot. Obviously it's way out of line for me to ask to see your IP logs, but I don't think it's inappropriate to suggest a possible line of investigation.
Just to go out on a limb and try to be constructive, I know that you're limited by the account management software you're using, but is there some kind of "trial user" setting you can use?
- Trial users may make only one post per 30 minutes (adjustable based on complaints from REAL trial users)
- Trial users become real users after 30 days.I don't know. They could still work past that, but it would at least take effort, and this seems more like someone who's just messing with Paizo because it's easy.
Or we take the "spamming this board isn't worth it" approach and get 50-60 dedicated Paizo users who will open communications via e-mail/phone and just waste oodles of the spammers' time. My favorite-ever phone solicitation was some poor guy who had to read me a 2-minute prepared speech. So I said, "What?" and he was required to repeat it. I said, "What?" again and he hung up on me and never called back.
If we have the time, wasting other peoples' time can be useful.
One small problem could be spammers making accounts on a regular basis, and allowing them to sit for a month to run the time out. Perhaps make it based on number of posts instead of a time limit. If an account makes enough posts without being flagged for spam, they could break out of the trial.