[Scummvm-devel] "Intelligent" forum spam bots

[Max Horn]

Am 20.09.2009 um 15:55 schrieb Torbjörn Andersson:

> Max Horn wrote:
>
>> When to move stuff to "deleted" and when to outright ban/
>> block the account :). Sometimes it's not clear what to do, I think.
>
> Well, as far as I can tell I can't ban/block accounts, which makes the
> choice much easier. :-)
>
> I've just assumed that the forum admins look at Deleted Topics every  
> now
> and then to see if there are any repeat offenders.

Unfortunately, that's not really the case (speaking for myself only,  
but just checked the ban list, and I'd say it's the same for Eugene).  
So, if mods note a particular rampaging bot, you should let one of the  
admins knows, so we can ban it.

In most cases, though, banning them usually doesn't seem to pay off.  
Looking at our recent spam, a lot of it seems to follow a hit-and-run  
pattern: They post 2-3 messages, we move them, then we never see the  
same account being used again. Annoying.

Guess we could solve that by requiring the first 1-3 posts of a newly  
registered member to be approve by a moderator. But that sounds like  
far too much work for moderators, and annoying for new users, and I am  
not even sure phpBB can do that.

Bye,
Max