Seems we've had a rash of new spammers recently. Perhaps, in an effort to combat this, having members complete their profile before registration is accepted would help. Too many of these swine show their carrier as "1" or some other nonsensical entry. A few are brazen enough to list the crap their peddling. If they list a device model at all it's often gibberish. I doubt they even have BlackBerrys, let alone know what models exist. Requiring them to list a valid carrier and BlackBerry model in their profile prior to that account being activated might make it hard enough to discourage some of them.

I don't even know if this idea is feasible. If so, it might save some mods a lot of trouble and make the troll-hunting a little easier.

How do you define a valid carrier? Hmm?

Is my carrier valid? Or is that a nonsensical entry?

It's fairly easy to spot them.
First ten posts are generally

LOL
I think I will try that
That's good to know
...

And their model is usually 7100 as that's the first in the list.

We've recently (thanks to Daphne) been able to ban a large slew of chinese IP addresses which many of these have been using. There will be more, and yes the 7100 model seems to be their "model" of choice along with carrier "1".

As always, don't be timid to use the "report post" button at the top right of all posts to report them... all you need to do in the report is say "spam".

Wow, I did not know there was a report post button. I'm an idiot lol. I'll try and help out more when I spot that stuff.

It's just got to be a legit carrier when you first register. If you stick around past 10 posts then you can change it to whatever you want. Initially, however, I'd require it to be a recognized carrier somewhere in the world.

Well this is my point... How do you know it's legit?

A recognized carrier somewhere in the world? I'm from the Caribbean. My carrier deals with my country alone...

What now?

A simple Google search can show that bmobile is a legit carrier.

So it's a recognized carrier then. Your country is somewhere in the world, and I'm sure a google search would prove that it is a valid carrier. Unlike the number 1. As far as I know.

Edit: Curse you js for being a minute faster than me! *shakes fist* :P

Ha! Now I'm going to start-up a cell provider with the name "1" just to mess up the plans!

Okay... Maybe I'm stupid.

Let's make it a partnership, we can have our customers boycott blackberry companys unreleased software.

Agreed. And while we're at it, we can sell pre-release phones for $1500 that are guaranteed not to work once RIM finds out. <- Just check recent threads for that one.

The profile1 that show 1 as model and carrier are guaranteed to be spammers. I think they are actually bots -- they all have the same date of birth, too.

Honestly I think some users whose first language is not English don't understand the term carrier. It would be better if it said mobile provider maybe, but I don't have the ability to change it.

I've been thinking of doing a post with tips to recoginze spammers. One thing we are getting is a lot of users with signature link spam. Sometimes they are not so obvious, but sometimes they are. I encourage anyone to report these if you see them.

I don't think there is any way in the forum software to make a requirement like that.

You could have a custom profile field that is a drop-down list of carriers, but that would be too time consuming to populate; would likely be very, very long; and wouldn't stop SPAM bots anyway.

There're all sorts of ways to stop spammers, or at least slow them in vBul. The first, of course, is to use the latest version of the board software; it's gotten better.

Bots can read most of the capcha stuff these days, so we don't even bother with it on DBR. We have a set of validation questions, asked in vaguely obscure ways.

The system asks a question at random on registration. They have to type in the answer (no multiple choice), and it's compared to a list of valid answers we've given. Anyone really interested in our topic - we're a sports board - has very little trouble answering it, but bots get stymied.

There are also some add-ons for spam prevention, but we haven't needed to go there. The questions work well enough, but we have only a fraction of BBF's membership.


Fun comparative metrics (as far as I can tell from a quick glance at the front pages):

BBF: 5 years, 193,000 threads, 1,450,000 posts, 380,000 members
DBR: 2.5 years, 13,000 threads, 300,000 posts, 4,600 members

I have absolutely no comprehension of how you manage your membership!

-jk

This forum does have anti-spam modifications in place, and there are probably more that we don't have on board. There's only one person here who can update the forum software and add modifications, but the trick is getting him to do it.

the influx of spammers is quite alarming actually. i've noticed a couple of people who have multiple posted the same post in 10 different places, just so they can reach the 10 mark and then they conveniently disappear.

i do like rambo's idea. i think that by making sure that you HAVE to give the name of your carrier when you register would help a lot in filtering out spammers.

also.. there are members who post once or twice and never return.. is there a way to just 'no longer register' those members because they're inactive for a long period of time? its just a suggestion.

From my experience and my assumption is that there is an admin modules they use and sites such as the following;

Whois lookup and Domain name search
Stop Forum Spam - Forum Banlist


The key is monitoring and policing by forum members

i agree with you there mate, but...i reckon inactive members should be unregistered after they don't return.. for like say 2 months maybe? at least then you have some control. some people don't even contribute, they just register to download stuff.

When you see that, please use the report post button so the moderators can stop them if they look like spammers.

I use both those sites many time daily.

No matter how many forum modifications and anti-bot measures are used that still does not stop the human spammers.

You are correct that monitoring and policing by forum members is extemely helpful. Each post has a button in the upper right corner where you can report the post. Moderators get an email for each reported post, so we can react quickly.

Please, if you see something that is spam or you think might be spam, don't hesitate to report the post.