[Solved] Spam - straight to delete instead of quarantine?

[RoryOF]

The only way I can think of at present is to "Friend" him, but I hesitate to do that as it might encourage him!

[acknak]

RoryOF suggested I RTFM, but I'm too lazy for that I was hoping someone else would look into it.

Seriously, every time I try to improve my (negligible) phpBB knowledge by reading the manual, I just get more confused.

One thing did pop out though, maybe the way to do it is to create a "monitored users" group that would be subject to moderation and/or more restrictive permissions for links/signature, etc. I think it's fairly easy for a moderator to assign/add a user to a group, and that would take care of the permissions. I just don't know if it's hard to create a group, or if you can do it based on another group--this group is the same as a registered user but should be moderated for all posts.

Or, we could keep everything simple and just nuke the b_____d and see if anyone complains

[RoryOF]

RoryOF suggested I RTFM, but I'm too lazy for that

I did say it might tell you more than you wanted to know! I have a URL for the phpBB manual if anyone is interested. I've scanned through it very quickly, and can see no easy way to monitor a user or group of users. Your suggestion of a special User group might be a good approach.

[Hagar Delest]

I would say keep it simple.

But your idea could be used for the spammers too! We just have to create a group that has no rights at all (or allow PM in case they want to contact the team), we could then add a rank showing they are banned. And it would be far more easy to count them (for my monthly report for example...). If the moderators have access to the drop-down list in the user profile to change the group, then it will be very easy to handle.

Creating a group is rather easy, I can do that I think.

Edit: Note that there is also the warning feature (I've warned a user once, it appears in the moderation panel). We have not really used it but perhaps we could instead of a group for users to monitor. Then notes should be added for that profile.

[RGB]

The next step of the spammers may be to post innocent looking stuff first, and then they may edit the posts once they have been approved. How are we going to deal with that?

Periodic searches for "http" may help: the search engine will detect that text even if hidden on [ url=--- tags

Of course it will find the "please read the survival guide" too...

On the ES forums, a Volunteer that knows how google works tried something like this:

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http:// -http://wiki.* -http://openoffice.org* -http://user.services*
-http://<other url to not include on the search>*
site:http://user.services.openoffice.org/es/forum

and it worked pretty well! We spotted some old spams, including one on a signature!

[floris v]

Lol, I tried that for the Dutch forum and got "Search About 11,400,000,000 results (0.09 seconds)" but not even 20 were listed. So much for the accuracy of Google. No spam found though.

[Hagar Delest]

Very nice hint!

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http:// -http://wiki.* -http://openoffice.org* -http://user.services*  site:http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum

gives around 30,000 hits.

I've created the Banned user group, it will be easier to handle the banning I think, see: [Solved] Banning management.

Edit: Hmm, I can't make the Banned group to be displayed in the drop-down list of a user profile! There may be a hierarchy...

I've issued a warning on ilmkidunya12. I let you check if it suits our need to monitor users. The list should be check from the Moderator control panel from time to time then (but it would be the same if a new group had to be created).

Well, rather happy with all our counter-measures! Sad to moderate posts but no choice for the moment.

[/a3]

Is it possible to put individual users on moderation permanently?

If you want to add a "monitored users" group, you can set the "post without approval" to "Never" for that group, which will mean posts will always go to the queue.

Also, you can set groups as Hidden so only administrators can see them.

[RGB]

Today, at the ES forums we had our first "See Manchester United on-line" attack. I caught the guy when posting so there was no problem. We have now a new moderator and I'll look later how to activate the moderation of first messages, just in case...

[kingfisher]

I see that another spam attack occurred on the Site Feedback board prior to Hagar latest report.

[Hagar Delest]

What do you mean? There has been very little moderation activity since yesterday. Why just Site Feedback?

[kingfisher]

On looking more closely I see that the spam was posted from 21 to 23 April and nothing more was posted until your report, so the spam was still visible in my reader.