Spam accounts / Posts recently?

Its not been intolerable yet but is there any ways to tackle this so it it wont become one ?

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Maybe if we can have a topic for mandatory presentation of new users. Only after that presentation, after validation, then users could post on different topics.

Or having a quarantine period, of one or two days, to allow posting only after that period.

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No idea how to solve it, but I have seen similar problems also. Ping @René and @MiikkaSolmela

The irony is they don’t seem to realise how potentially dangerous for them (or the site they plan to spuik) it is to spam a forum full of people who specialise in automation :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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Configuring spam protection - Comprehensive Discourse Forum Setup and Management | StudyRaid had few configuration hints that might be helpful.

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So there’s no interest at all to stop the bot replies with llm content and just wait until users flag the replies ?

There is. Most of the spam bots are actually caught by the current settings, so review inbox of the moderators is always full of posts that got blocked before being published.

The posts you thankfully flag are those few that got through. It is a small amount of total spam, so i would say the spamming counter-measures work quite well.

But similar to users who cannot see the entire list of spam, moderators cannot see the options for tweaking the ai filters. Only administrators can see these options. Tatu and me for instance simply did not see what is possible, and as said the almost entire spam is caught already automatically.

However, I was just granted administrative rights, so I am now both moderator and admin. My intention was updating the forum as even moderators got messages of components being outdated. I am now updating the forum (if you notice hiccups, please let us know). But now that I see all options, I can have a look on the filters, too.

Second however: already with the hit rate of the filters it is at times very difficult for moderators to evaluate whether a post is spam. Up to now 99% of the posts automatically flagged as spam is actual spam. I sometimes take several minutes to review a flag post, make research, fact check and occasionally contact the author in real life for identifying them as real person or informing them about stolen identity. I do find sometimes false-positive, but it is very rare. Tweaking the filters may be tricky as it has potential to make the false-positive rate worse instead of better. I want to avoid blocking a user from the forum by false interpretation.

Anyway. Long story short, moderators know the issue, as it is literally what consumes most of their time when visiting the forum. So yes, there is interest of tackling the issue, unfortunately those spam posts that become public are the tip of an ice berg. We try our best to balance the interest of a community being open for rookie questions and at the same time locking out spammers.

I will look in to the filters nonetheless.

And please allow me to add my gratitude since we don’t really have a channel where I could share this with you on a regular base: Thank you all for keeping this forum alive, as first responders, contributors and tutors. I am always grateful when I scroll through the topics and see how well you care for the community. :folded_hands:

If you want to become moderator, send me a personal message, contact me in slack. But be aware that moderating will eat time that you would usually spend on being in discussion with the community.

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@Noordsestern Markus,

I just want to say thank you :heart: for the work you do as a moderator, I know it’s often thankless work (before today I didn’t even know who the moderators were).

Know the moderation efforts are appreciated :+1:

Dave.

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