Bots bots bots... Bots

[Althea]

The site seems to be coming under a lot of bot attacks lately, and it seems the majority are cleaned up quite quickly.

However, bots who post in existing topics are largely overlooked. I've reported numerous posts/users for obvious bot/spammer behaviour via the site report function, yet nothing is being done about them, and I'm sure some other users are doing the same.

There are users on this site constantly being caught out by the bots. They're responding to them, thinking they're genuine contributors, and as such it's wasting their time, whether it's simply reading a topic that's been bumped by a bot or even by constructing a reply to said bot/spammer.

[Nalano]

If Mass Effect has taught us anything, it's that we should be inviting and accepting of our Synthetic-American neighbors.

[Bobtree]

It's becoming aggravating to deal with them. RPS badly needs to add some filters for the repeating redirect targets and link patterns. I also hate the 60 second "report spam" delay, but I suppose that's necessary to keep the spammers from abusing and devaluing that feature. Something like a "web of trust" blocking-by-consensus list that's seeded by RPS regulars would help. Even some forum protocol from RPS would do, like to always report the one with the most views and ignore the rest in the series, or whether we should bother ignore-listing the spammer accounts.

[pakoito]

Add Captchas to create thread. Problem solved.

[Althea]

I think another mod or two really wouldn't hurt in terms of keeping the bots down.

[Alex Bakke]

Add Captchas to create thread. Problem solved.

The RPS spam has traditionally been human-manned. It might cut down a few, but spam will still remain.

[Rii]

I knew something was up when it said it liked my post. > >

[pakoito]

The RPS spam has traditionally been human-manned. It might cut down a few, but spam will still remain.

It will cut down all of them, recaptcha has almost 100% accuracy. No AI or bot is good enough to pass a reverse Turing yet. The most common way to get past them is to pay people to solve them...so far I have seen webs that give 1$ per 1000 captchas.

[Alex Bakke]

It will cut down all of them, recaptcha has almost 100% accuracy. No AI or bot is good enough to pass a reverse Turing yet. The most common way to get past them is to pay people to solve them...so far I have seen webs that give 1$ per 1000 captchas.

In my post I stated that the spamposters are humans. This implies that they are not bots - Your post was addressing a different issue.

[Stellar Duck]

It will cut down all of them, recaptcha has almost 100% accuracy. No AI or bot is good enough to pass a reverse Turing yet. The most common way to get past them is to pay people to solve them...so far I have seen webs that give 1$ per 1000 captchas.

To be honest, I have a hard time with the captchas sometimes. It's lead me to fear I might be a robot without knowing it.

[Jams O'Donnell]

I also hate the 60 second "report spam" delay

If you're trying to report a bunch of spam posts from the same user, you really only need to report one since we can then just delete everything by that user and ban the account with a handful of clicks.

[ChiYeon]

it easy to ban a username by reporting a mod..

[Althea]

Still seems like the clean up is really, really slow. I've reported some users multiple times, and they're still around.

[ntw]

Maybe the admins are busy? Unlike the rest of us who can spend all day browsing these forums :)

[Althea]

And thus I quote:

I think another mod or two really wouldn't hurt in terms of keeping the bots down.

[Bobtree]

If you're trying to report a bunch of spam posts from the same user, you really only need to report one since we can then just delete everything by that user and ban the account with a handful of clicks.

Thank you for saying so. It would be even better if the interface just said that it's unnecessary to report more than one spam post from any source.

[TailSwallower]

I think another mod or two really wouldn't hurt in terms of keeping the bots down.

I could have easily echoed Althea's sentiments and I tend to be on the forum a lot, so I'd be happy to help. I know I haven't really been here for that long though compared to some.

[dollyue]

maybe keep the moderator more and more active ..to avoid that.. :)