Big spam attack

[Salvarani]

We are under attack

 

[RedheadDane]

And now there are two of them





Or... maybe the same underlying account.

 

[Cookster15]

Do these kind of attacks break any laws? Or is it only a CyclingNews / Future PLC problem to deal with?

 

[tobydawq]

Wouldn't that still lead me to the threads. Where I'd then need to report?

By 'you' he meant the moderator...

 

[RedheadDane]

By 'you' he meant the moderator...

I was asking about what I need to do.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

And again.

Not sure if it's a Future PLC issue or a Xenforo issue, but none of the spam attacks have been remotely sophisticated and I feel like any decent spam filter should have sorted them out. So frankly someone isn't doing their job. It's annoying for everyone and must be doubly so for @Armchair Cyclist as I imagine it's going to be like 15 minutes a day of manually cleaning everything up at this point...

 

[tobydawq]

I was asking about what I need to do.

And he said you didn't need to report every post because it was easy to remove all the posts from a given poster.

 

[RedheadDane]

And he said you didn't need to report every post because it was easy to remove all the posts from a given poster.

Did he?

SPAM cleaning does it automatically, but this one has so many most need to be deleted manually cause it exceeded the spam threshold.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Just to be absolutely clear;
We don't need to report all the individual posts in a spam-thread?

No need to report all the posts, just the spamming account.

Trying to get Admins with extra tools onto it, because (as guessed by others) spam nuking an account is not an option after they have a few posts in place.

At least they don't seem sophisticated enough to place the spam in real threads, and their titles are not likely to deceive anyone into thinking it is real content.

I'm on mobile at the moment, which makes it even more tedious to process the deletions

 

[RedheadDane]

No need to report all the posts, just the spamming account.

Aaah, then I misunderstood the "once it goes over a certain amount we can't just nuke them all at once." post.

At least they don't seem sophisticated enough to place the spam in real threads, and their titles are not likely to deceive anyone into thinking it is real content.

You don't say!

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Aaah, then I misunderstood the "once it goes over a certain amount we can't just nuke them all at once." post.

You probably didn't misunderstand it: but without the nuking option, I just work through the account's posts manually anyway, so simply knowing who it is is enough. And removing reports from the list becomes a manual task too.

 

[Berniece]

No need to report all the posts, just the spamming account.

Good to know, I was always reporting all of them which was also annoying because I had to wait 20-30s between each report

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Good to know, I was always reporting all of them which was also annoying because I had to wait 20-30s between each report

Thanks for the perseverance, but not needed.

I think that is this morning's onslaught repelled, but man vs bot is always going to have me struggling to keep up.

 

[AmRacer]

Thanks for the perseverance, but not needed.

I think that is this morning's onslaught repelled, but man vs bot is always going to have me struggling to keep up.

Manual approval of a new user's first couple of posts?

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Manual approval of a new user's first couple of posts?

Used to be a thing: I have told them that I am willing to apply it.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Used to be a thing: I have told them that I am willing to apply it.

Or even just the first post, so long as the spambots aren't smart enough to do something resembling an actual post first that would be enough and also be less of a barrier to new members than the first 5 posts (which is what it used to be).

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

@CParsons (Admin) has tweaked some options on the board that should be invisible to most, but will be helpful in making access to the "nuke the spammer" button more reliable for me (or any other mod: applications are still very welcome).

He has also increased the minimum time between posts to slow down these attacks, which you may notice if you are in the habit of multiple quick posts.

 

[Netserk]

He has also increased the minimum time between posts to slow down these attacks, which you may notice if you are in the habit of multiple quick posts.

Is it possible to differentiate between new posters and old posters?

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Is it possible to differentiate between new posters and old posters?

@CParsons ?

 

[CParsons]

@CParsons ?

Differentiate.. How? I mean, there's several ways that can be done. But under what context?

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Differentiate.. How? I mean, there's several ways that can be done. But under what context?

Netserk mentioned it just above in relation to the increased minimum time between posts.

 

[CParsons]

Netserk mentioned it just above in relation to the increased minimum time between posts.

Gotcha. It basically ignores anyone with 15+ posts.

 

[Netserk]

Gotcha. It basically ignores anyone with 15+ posts.

Perfect.

 

[CParsons]

Perfect.

Do let me know if you run into any issues with it however, there's still room for adjustment for sure. I just wanted to have a starting point in there and if we need to adjust from there, we can certainly do so.