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To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #39501]

Sun, 24 March 2013 10:44

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

I have got email from nick 'forfreedom' who got rejected (he has emailed some legit questions about U++, I have redirected him to the forum).

Looks like we have rejected legit user this time...

Mirek

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #39503 is a reply to message #39501]

Sun, 24 March 2013 11:46

unodgs
Messages: 1367
Registered: November 2005
Location: Poland

Ultimate Contributor

mirek wrote on Sun, 24 March 2013 05:44

Yes, that's a problem. Maybe this forum has newer version that supports captcha on registering new user. That would be the best solution I guess.

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #39504 is a reply to message #39501]

Sun, 24 March 2013 11:55

dolik.rce
Messages: 1791
Registered: August 2008
Location: Czech Republic

Ultimate Contributor

Hi,

Sometimes it is quite hard to tell whether it is a real user or spam. So far I've been following few simple rules that seem to identify the spammers:

1) The registration e-mail is @hotmail.com or @163.com
2) The birth date is three digits.
3) The name is group of unreadble characters (e.g. '� � �0m7x9s')

These should match majority of the spam, everything else can probably approved. If anyone observed more indicators, please comment.

Regarding point 1), emails can be set to be filtered automatically in the forum administration. Perhaps we should do that, I don't think there is many programmers using those. And it would save me quite a few emails per day from the account approval tool.

Best regards,
Honza

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #39561 is a reply to message #39504]

Sat, 30 March 2013 09:51

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Well, I do not know. I am starting to think that approving users and deciding who might be a spammer and who is not is more hassle than simply let them act and delete them later.

What would be nice is the option to delete all messages with user...

Mirek

[Updated on: Sat, 30 March 2013 09:51]

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #40371 is a reply to message #39501]

Thu, 25 July 2013 22:55

lectus
Messages: 329
Registered: September 2006
Location: Brazil

Senior Member

I think email verification and have a simple challenge like:

Quote:

int x = 2;
int y = 5;
int z = x * y;

What's the value of z?

is enough to prevent spamming bots (unless they can code in C++)

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #40372 is a reply to message #39561]

Thu, 25 July 2013 23:31

nlneilson
Messages: 644
Registered: January 2010
Location: U.S. California. Mojave &...

Contributor

mirek wrote on Sat, 30 March 2013 01:51

What would be nice is the option to delete all messages with user...

They have that on another forum which is handy and can ban that user.
But they also let anybody post without registering which is a PITA with all the spam from China to sell ugg boots, louis vuitton, etc.

The U++ site has handled the spam very well.

[Updated on: Thu, 25 July 2013 23:46]

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #40374 is a reply to message #40372]

Fri, 26 July 2013 19:03

dolik.rce
Messages: 1791
Registered: August 2008
Location: Czech Republic

Ultimate Contributor

There is a great function in newer versions of this forums. It allows to moderate first N posts of a new user. That would IMHO minimize the possibility of deleting legitimate user. But this feature is present in versions 3.0.1 and I'm not sure how difficult would it be to do the upgrade.

Honza

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #40375 is a reply to message #40374]

Sat, 27 July 2013 08:31

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

dolik.rce wrote on Fri, 26 July 2013 13:03

My estimate is 3-5MD for the FUDforum upgrade; the problem is that the a) the current version is way too old b) it is installed in non-standard way, as the regular install/import has failed.

But I am afraid it has to be done soon....

Mirek

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #40957 is a reply to message #40375]

Mon, 14 October 2013 09:05

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Well, after receiving a couple more emails about failed attempts to register to the forum, I have turned the feature off.

I guess it is better to moderate spam and spammers out that to scare new users Smile

Mirek

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #40958 is a reply to message #40957]

Mon, 14 October 2013 09:06

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

(of course, long term solution is fudforum upgrade. I will try to reserve those MDs of work soon, certainly any volunteers capable of helping me with the process are welcome).

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #42577 is a reply to message #40958]

Tue, 25 March 2014 18:19

nlneilson
Messages: 644
Registered: January 2010
Location: U.S. California. Mojave &...

Contributor

Getting more spam lately.
For new users could the initial post/s be put in some que and checked before putting it on the forum?

Some other forums do it that way.

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #42578 is a reply to message #42577]

Tue, 25 March 2014 18:34

Klugier
Messages: 1099
Registered: September 2012
Location: Poland, Kraków

Senior Contributor

Hello,

For me the weakest point of the registration form is following part:
"
Please enter the code shown below:
.##.....##..####..##....##..##.....##.
.##.....##...##...##...##...##.....##.
.##.....##...##...##..##....##.....##.
.#########...##...#####.....##.....##.
.##.....##...##...##..##....##.....##.
.##.....##...##...##...##...##.....##.
.##.....##..####..##....##...#######..
"

This is trivial for bots. Personally, I think that ultimate++ should use image istead of chars.

Sincerely,
Klugier

U++ - one framework to rule them all.

[Updated on: Tue, 25 March 2014 20:27]

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #42597 is a reply to message #42578]

Wed, 26 March 2014 08:19

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Well, the problem with forum is that we are using existing software and we are sort of stuck with this particular forum (FUDforum).

Current version of FUDforum seems to have all that we need. I really would like to make upgrade and in fact I am working on it - but I have hard time overcoming some glitch in the process that prevents me to do so. I have posted my problem to FUDforum

http://fudforum.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=123452& start=0&

but so far no reply (as you can see).

If there is anybody with good LAMP knowledge willing to help to upgrade the forum, that would be highly appreciated. In any case, we need to be careful about the process, so what I require is that first this has to be done on non-production machine (your/mine local) and the process ironed out first.

For those wishing to help, the complete forum dump can be found here:

http://www.ultimate.org/forum/FUDforum_23_03_2014_06_27.fud. gz

(it is not current, but to test process it is good enough).

Mirek

[Updated on: Wed, 26 March 2014 08:45]

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #42600 is a reply to message #42597]

Wed, 26 March 2014 08:41

andreincx
Messages: 15
Registered: March 2014

Promising Member

Hello Mirek,

Link to the forum dump file doesn't work. It should be ultimatepp.org instead of ultimate.org.

Best regards,
Andrei

[Updated on: Wed, 26 March 2014 08:42]

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #42601 is a reply to message #42600]

Wed, 26 March 2014 08:45

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Thanks, fixed.

Mirek

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #42692 is a reply to message #42601]

Sat, 29 March 2014 15:19

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Note about forum upgrade (if there is somebody else playing with the forum dump):

I have now identified the first issues that prevented me to import the forum. It looks like there was theme id mismatch, which I have fixed by

update fud_users set theme = 1;

next issue encountered was incompatibility with new MySQL while doing forum consistency check, fixed by adding q("UNLOCK TABLES") into adm/consist.php line 299.

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Re: To forum moderators: We are starting to be too harsh rejecting accounts [message #42696 is a reply to message #39561]

Sat, 29 March 2014 19:17

nlneilson
Messages: 644
Registered: January 2010
Location: U.S. California. Mojave &...

Contributor

mirek wrote on Sat, 30 March 2013 01:51

What would be nice is the option to delete all messages with user...
Mirek

That option is available in vBulletin� Version 4.2.1 and has been in earlier versions.
It is useful and a time saver.

If that was a request made to FUDforum they might include it in the next version.

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