actually he was talking about the 20 spambots i banned in a row

ive banned more than that but they dont show up in the crimelab because i'm doing preemptives based on username (APOLOGIES FOR ANY LEGITIMATE USER WITH "CIALIS" IN THEIR NAME)

i cross reference using databases of known spambots and will preemptively ban from that.

i think we should change the 'new user' avatar to a colorful 'PLZ BUY MY CRAP' avatar

I'm for it, and will vote for you as mayor of i-mockery if you make it so

He's already judge, jury, and executioner.

Well, maybe not executioner, that might be willie.

Can this thread also be used to report trolls? If so I have a quote from one below

Taken care of.

I think this may be a new spambot, he hasn't spammed yet, but I expect he will with all those numbers in his name

http://www.i-mockery.com/forum/member.php?u=14727

The spambots today are

WISH I COULD STILL HELP OUT

MLE how are you doing that? :eek

majick

that's why i'm chief of police, son

QUESTION FOR THE ADMINS WHO IGNORE THIS THREAD ANYWAY:

Does there exist some sort of setting that can automatically delete all the posts/threads of someone when you check the "Spammed Advertisements" ban option?

I don't think so, but you can just go to their profile and check all their posts from there and delete them. It's much faster.

That's how I do it, but the whole infraction/ban/delete/hard delete process gets tedious after you do it eighty thousand times :(

well i wouldn't want it to be automatic on all spammed advertisements bans but yeah that sounds pretty helpful

edit: although i guess if you wanted to have more control you could just do a custom infraction :/

I do things that way on the forum for my blog, too MLE.

That's the way I've been doing it.

I looked into some option for preventing newly registered users from posting links of any kind, but I don't think the board has that capability.

i see no reason there couldn't be some sort of plugin for that

I feel like we should not delete spam bots nor their posts. Just transfer them all to this thread with them quoting each other. Then have death fights.

that's a gribble of an idea

i'd rather not help them boost their google ranking, as we did for pram maven.

Yeah, I've scoured through all the forum settings for something like that, but no such luck. Happy to try a plugin if anybody knows of one... though we're using a pretty old version of the software now, so plugins like that may not even be compatible.

So yeah, for now, just deleting their posts and banning or deleting their accounts is the way to go. I particularly like finding one just as they're registering and then deleting the account as soon as they're finished and about to make a post.

you think they'd get the hint after a while

Last night, I figured out a potentially good way to thwart a large portion of the spambots that keep registering on here. I don't want to say it in public in case any of the spammers read this thread trying to see what we're doing to stop them, but if any of you mods want to know what I did, feel free to PM me.

You know if you jerks would stop making witty responses at spambots that don't care, we'd notice the spam a lot faster.

Maybe the thread titled "ViAgrA WOWGOLD sexBoys NOW" created by 12312lown is a give away?

I'm talking about the bots that respond to things

I've started clicking the thingiemajig in the right-hand corner. I assume that helps.

I always click the thingy when I see a spambot

Oh we know.

Yeah, I wanted to kind of mention that. I don't know about the other mods, but I personally find the spambot reporting to be a bit unnecessary. The only thing that happens is a new thread pops up, which I'm just as likely to see as the spam thread anyway.

I'd only report it if there was nekid pics. I'd rather it be noticed right away and removed before it gets onto Willies hard drive.

Yeah, no need to report them really unless you see the thread/post there for several days without a moderator removing it. What MLE said is true too - don't reply to spambot posts, because it makes them harder for us to notice.

On a positive note, the steps I took to reduce spambot registrations seems to have worked really well. There haven't been nearly as many new registrations on a daily basis over the past week. :picklehat

That worked for awhile, but they have adapted to your defensive capabilities it would seem :(

Next time we need Russian spam, we know who to call.

Is there a way to make new posters post in the new person thread first before being able to hit the rest of the board? I don't know if the spam bots would be smart enough to do that. Of course that may cut down on actual new people wanting to post, so may not be a benefit. Just an idea.

that's not the way I see it

:lol

EVERY SPAMBOT WANTS TO SELL YOU GUCCI ACCESSORIES

WE JUST HAD ABOUT A MILLION OF THEM.

DO YOUR FUCKING JOB MILHORSE. >:

I DID, ASSHOLE

STOP BEING SUCH A GODDAMNED SAMBOT

Yeah, good luck getting someone on this forum to buy gucci. What do they think we are, 40 year old women who watch sex and the city.

You mean we're not? :eek

I think we need a thread backups for most hilarious spambot engrish, like this gem (edited out actual spam)

:lol

Too good

Damn, that spambot just came up with a great movie idea. Maybe an Irish leprechaun-shark hybrid of some sort. Classic.

Another good reason for a spambot hall of fame thread is so we can reply to the silliness there instead of burying them and helping them escape justice

And who wouldn't watch that movie?

This was a very specific vBulletin thread about preventing spambots that was very easy to find and was posted almost five years ago. >:

https://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...TOP-Spam-Bots-!!

The first post explains and links to a plugin that can be installed that prevents users from posting links until they reach a certain number of posts (which can be manually set).

Apparently this is very effective, and even though spambots still register they're completely unable to post.

SOUNDS GOOD TO ME, LET'S GET THIS SHIT SET UP ASAP

Alrighty, I had a few minutes to spare this afternoon, so I just installed that plugin that prevents users from posting links until they have 10 posts. Please register a test account or two and let me know if it's working.
:picklehat

Doesn't seem to be. There's a test fake spammer spamming it up in chat

Yeah, that was me. I hope this isn't too good to be true. :(

When I try to set the permissions "For Individual Forums | For All Existing Forums" I get thrown to the Smilies FAQ page.

Someone in the mod installation thread mentioned "You need to turn on the mod before you try, and be sure you are superadmin when you do. Once you turn it on it will allow you to set all rather than take you to the smilies page. When it's turned off it takes you to smilies."

But as far as I can tell, I have the mod turned on. :/

Ok try again with another new account and make a new post in General Blabber and let me know if it works.

It should let you post, but shouldn't let any links appear.

:crossesfingers

Somebody test it : O

Testing worked. No newly registered poster should be able to post links until they make 5 posts without them.

Hopefully this works the way it's supposed to, unless we suddenly get a wave of non-spamming spambots.

Pram character :lol

hey it even doesn't let you have a signature with links in it doesnt it

neat

edit: correction, it doesn't let you have a signature AT ALL

Oh right, I forgot about the sig spammers.

I'm counting chickens while they're all hell of still in eggs like a motherfucker, but this is the greatest thing ever

is the minimum posts # adjustable

i'd feel safer with 10 or more tbh

Glad to hear it works! Let's leave the minimum number of posts at 5 right now. If it becomes a problem, I'll increase it to 10 posts later on.

Also, thanks for tracking down this mod, Esuohlim. I'm sure it'll make the lives of the other mods & admins a lot easier too. Good find :picklehat

oh wow also you can't READ links/images in sigs until you've got 10 posts

hmm or not.

further tests required

okay the sig's showing up despite only having 4 posts but it crossed 5 posts before i deleted one so i don't know for sure if it allows sig links or not

i know sigs weren't VISIBLE when i was logged in though

yeah, when logged in as the_rapist i can't even see signatures, but when logged out i see everything except sig links and images which are replaced with "YOU MUST HAVE 10 POSTS TO VIEW IMAGES OR LINKS, YOU HAVE 0" so that's weird

on the plus side though not allowed to PM anyone but mods until postcount minimums are reached, so at least pm spam will be blocked

I just deleted spam without links, but urls were still there >:

Ok, I'm not sure what the problem is. Can somebody summarize what's wrong when you're logged in as a new user and what's wrong when you're not logged in at all?

i'm not sure it's something WRONG, per se. I created a new account and could not see anybody's signature until I got past 5 posts, and when I was logged out it gave me a message in place of each link in a signature that I was not allowed to view said link until I had 10 posts.

Ok try both logged in with a new account and logged out now and lemme know if it's any better. The documentation with this plugin is pretty shitty, so it's a lot of trial & error.

VISUAL DEPICTION

whoops, didn't see your post while i was making picture. I'll test again

yeah the <5 posts account still can't see signatures at all, but logged out people can

and tbh not being able to see sigs is probably good for anti-spambot action(they can't harvest new places to spam from links that way), but it should be consistent so it works the same for logged out people as it does for <5 posts people if possible

Ok, how about now? Can the <5 posts account see signatures? I want them to be able to view sigs, just not have their own until they've proven that they're not spam bots.

nope, sigs still don't show up when i'm logged in to the other one, and he's still got signature (and can edit said signature)

also, a spambot just registered and made five posts so that it could post spam.

this may not be so great

and another just showed up with signature spam

Is the plugin able to block certain strings of characters, or is that too sophisticated? The spam I've seen still have urls without links, so maybe blocking "http://" or ".com" or ".html" etc. as well?

Probably not though :(

Sigs are showing up when I'm logged out, so that's fine by me. I think you can enter in a signature if you have <5 posts, but it won't show up for anybody else to see until you have at least 5. I could be wrong though... again, the documentation for this plugin is shit.

Nope. There's nothing like that for it.

can't you just make a report as spam option that automatically moves it to a spam thread.

just make it so only people who are like members/vets are able to do it and they can't do it to eachother.

report as spambot would be nice too cause i see spammers all the time and wish i could ban the fuck out of them ;(

theres probably 8 on right now

well, though its not stopping ALL of them, the flood of bots seems to have died down to a trickle so i guess hoorays are in order

there's seven bots on right now :(

n/m there's eight.

so there's probably like eleven bots on right now guys

kahljorn, johnvdsmjr, Emu, ThrashO, carolilsv, andri2bj1ca, k0k0, jannirmiwb7, lisaviti5sp, Sacks, Phoenix Gamma, victobhhw, Colonel Flagg, mew barios, HowardC, tammypbfonm, bonnija3tup, Grislygus, garypymz6l, retrewss3, michaor9e, tabeadmo06, keyalw8v8, Kitsa

i think bots still show up when they're banned? maybe

idk

Why not? Pram Maven is banned and I still see him show up

A lot of them registered, but never posted. Maybe they're just waiting for the right moment.

we still get about the same amount every day now; some of them are just sort of 'neutered' and post non-linking garbage, and some seem to have adapted to putting spam-signatures in instead

uh also i just killed one that only had three posts but still managed to spam links, so did that get turned off or have they bypassed it somehow?

Was about to also ask that because this guy (http://www.i-mockery.com/forum/member.php?u=16671) has only one post and managed some spam linkage

I've noticed quite a few spambots posting links lately. I never turned off that mod, so I guess they've found some way to bypass it. :/

I believe vBulletin also has a feature where you can implement a question for people to answer before they register. I've seen them be easy math questions like "5+18-3" or something

"Wear your children warm and lovely with Australia" is my new favorite sentence of the day

Yeah, I laughed for about 3 minutes on that one this morning.

AND PRAM MAVEN IS LOGGED IN RIGHT NOW BECAUSE HE WAS MENTIONED

STUD_BEANER_69 IS 29 TODAY HAPPY BIRTDAY

One spambot: well X-Men is really awesome movie :) i guess :)

Another spambot: The two main characters in X-man back to their youth, it's a nice story! Even though there are still have some bugs in this movie, but still a classical movie!

Apparently spammers love the xmen. I didn't see Xmen the first class, mainly because of all these bugs I'm hearing about. I'll just wait til version 2.0




and another spammer: That's might be a little funny i put on sport site.Sport is a excited activity.

It sure is spammerbots. It sure is.

so i just deleted one that made seventeen posts

hate you china