The Major BBS Forums (Archive)

So...here's a thought...but...require manual validation before anyone can post to the General Discussion forum. The bots are simply using the first forum they can access. That, or put in a forum that people in a slightly upgraded group can't see, and set that forum to show up first. Then, have it autoprune either every day, hour, whatever. Then just manually upgrade everyone whenever you can. That way, it eliminates the need to have someone actually be available to remove the Paris Hilton, Toyota Camry, Britney Spears posts, and the regular forum posters are none the wiser to their spamming. And you could probably do away with the time limit on the posting...which I just ran into editing this post... Just a though

It's not just here but on alot of forums,and they post where they can...more then just bots I think. people with no life and nothing better to do....

http://www.themajorbbs.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=264

Well...there's a small flaw with that...
I've seen the exact same posts, from the exact same names on other boards. I already read the other post. Besides some frustration with it, there wasn't a real cure for the problem mentioned. If we could weed out even 25% of them (assuming that at least 25% are bots...I'd wager on it being morelike 75-90%) then it would make life easier here. Not to mention, I'm fairly certain that the mods wouldn't mind spending the time they get to spend on the forums deleting mindless spam. Having a "catch-all" type setup in place would likely free up at least a good percentage of their time, and reduce the actual work they have to do. This being a hobby site mainly, I think that they would have to agree that as soon as a hobby feels like work (in addition to their day jobs) it becomes more trouble than it's worth. The frustration is evident, so I think we should brainstorm on ways to reduce/eliminate the spam problem. I mean...there are autoposters on Softpedia for god's sake. If we don't find a way to stop it, it's going to end up overrunning the board and our small bastion of hope will fade away into oblivion. I'd hate to see that happen.

There are a few mods for phpBB I'd like to try that improve administration options for forums.. phpBB is very behind-the-times when it comes to adding spam control administration options... they're probably all focusing on v3, but until v3 comes out, we have to make do..

I'm not really a fan of PHP. I think its kind of crap, really.. a scripting "language" that attracts non developers.. and the quality of the mods is poor, so I kind of disdain them, but what can you do.

Trust me I know what you mean...I used to oper #php on EFNet. What was the most common question? How can I make a web-game in PHP? God knows, that's the most important thing. *sigh* Obviously, I quit helping there. I moved on, but I figure trying something is worth a shot, ya know..just to slow them down. Hell, if something is done to cause an error on their end, then they might just take the site off of their list... (one can only hope...)