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[sockless]

Given the recent spate of spam attacks, maybe we should think about implementing a ban on thread creation for escaped lunatics. Or maybe we should get a better form of CAPTCHA, a good one is to ask questions that are easy to answer but hard for computers, such as "What game is this forum dedicated to?".

[Capntastic]

I think it'd be cool if people couldn't post threads until they've got a good number of posts under their belt (around 50), but that's because I have a strong dislike for people who register solely to post a bunch of bad threads and not actually stick around to discuss them.

[Maklak]

I was once registered on a forum (Darkfall one, IIRC), where after registration you could only post in new arrivals sub-forum for three or so days. It worked as a filter, but was annoying. I prefer the rules for posting and creating threads as they are now.

I'm strictly against 50 post before thread creation rule. It would be an encouragement for people to post useless comments in various threads, so they can farm 50 of them and 'achieve' status where they can finally start their own thread. It would make things worse.

[Capntastic]

While I can sympathize with the core of your argument, as it stands now we have always had people posting tons of no-content stuff (both threads and posts) for no reason at all.  If there were more moderation on the forum, or the forum's populace showed more restraint and better judgment, it wouldn't be an issue.  In the main discussion forum, DwarfMeister basically posted 7 or so threads in the span of two days, flooding the first and second pages with whatever popped into their head.

I'm a fan of SA's rule of "don't post anything unless it's funny or adds something new to the discussion" as well as "hang out a while and read before you start posting".  I'm very much in favor of better discussion rather than 'more' discussion. 

Considering that there are thousands of active forum members, with around 100-300 on at any given time, at some point something's going to have to be done to keep the community from spiraling into utter trash, like the Blizzard, Mojang, or [insert other popular game here] forums.

Edit:  To make sure this stays somewhat on topic, I know Toady has been concerned about adbots for a while.  I know he's tried to finesse the registration process once or twice to keep 'em out, but obviously that hasn't worked so well.

[NW_Kohaku]

I'm not sure a ___ post limit would actually stop a spambot - some of these bots will post about 10 posts in a row, already, so giving them an arbitrary limit before they can start a new thread would simply encourage them to spam existing threads more before they can spam new threads.

Conversely, 50 posts would probably annoy many genuine new forumgoers, and I don't think presuming that none of them have anything worth saying is necessarily conducive to teaching newcomers how to be more helpful with their posts.  It would annoy without teaching. 

Instituting a Captcha for every post that a forumgoer makes for the first arbitrary number of posts, meanwhile, might be a harder hurdle for spambots to clear, presuming that whoever sets the spambots up will have to manually perform those Captchas.

[IT 000]

I see the logic behind Capntastic's view of the 50 post limit, but I agree with Maklak, it would lead to more stupid posts, not less.

I think a better system would be to make a thread cap, so you can only make so many threads any given week. 3-5 seem like good numbers. Once the thread cap is reached, give them a pop up saying "You have reached your thread cap, please post on an existing thread." every time they try to post another thread.

[10ebbor10]

Problem with a 50 post rules is that it will essentially stop any now forumgoer who registered to ask a question, breaking down or severely hampering community help.

Maybe new members would need to fill out a short interrogation ( 5-10 Multiple choice questions) of the forum rules.

[JanusTwoface]

Is this really such a big problem? Granted, I only really pay attention to the Suggestions forum (where I have notifications on for all new threads) and occasionally the lower forums, but I haven't really noticed too many instances of spam that really got annoying. Usually every few weeks there will be a bunch of jersey posts or whatnot, but I just delete them from my email and report them using the nice 'Report to moderator' button and Toady One deletes them.

Actual people making long strings of what they think are useful posts could be slightly more annoying actually, but in general people will tell them that they should avoid doing that and I've never seen someone not stop doing it. So for the most part, the forums here are remarkably self regulating. Much better than some other ones (the Minecraft and Terraria forums come to mind).

So far as CAPTCHAs, they're better than nothing but actually amazingly easy to get around. You can pay someone in another country to solve tens of thousands of them for amazingly little money. Much easier than getting the bot alone to do it. It's really a battle on how much the spam bot thinks it can earn versus how much it costs to attack. (I have links to a few papers on the subject if anyone is interested).

If there were more moderation on the forum, or the forum's populace showed more restraint and better judgment, it wouldn't be an issue.

Is there any stated reason why there aren't volunteer moderators? I know it's Toady One's / ThreeToe's choice and that they can cause more problems than they solve, but I'm sure there has to be a few members that could be trusted with the job. Seems like it would take some of the strain of maintainability off just having a few more people that can speak with an official voice when the need arises.

Just my two cents.

[slothen]

I don't notice spam bots very often.  Lets keep the status quo.

[IT 000]

I don't notice spam bots very often.  Lets keep the status quo.

oh sweet irony

[GreatWyrmGold]

There's one spambot that posted about half a dozen threads a moment ago. Capchas (checks spelling) captchas would be a good idea.

[NW_Kohaku]

I don't notice spam bots very often.  Lets keep the status quo.

oh sweet irony

Except that by the time I looked at this post, which was only a minute or two after you posted that, it was already deleted.  (Granted, it took Toady/Threetoe about an hour to get around to it, but still...)

If you don't check this forum very regularly, you aren't going to see it that often. 

I think the Suggestions Forum gets spammed more than the rest of the forums because it's the first forum on the list that allows the creation of new threads, so here's where the most trouble occurs. 

That said, I don't think it's a major problem because I doubt it takes Threetoe more than a couple minutes a week to delete those threads and ban the spam account. 

You'll notice that nobody responded to those threads, nobody made a big panic about it, it just got reported as spam and was cleaned up. 

So yes, I don't believe this is much of a problem. I probably see 12 spam accounts a month, and it's not that big a deal to wipe them out.

[IT 000]

I think the Suggestions Forum gets spammed more than the rest of the forums because it's the first forum on the list that allows the creation of new threads, so here's where the most trouble occurs. 

Perhaps we could set up one or two 'decoy threads' to catch spambots.

But yeah, props to Toady/Three Toe for catching that one quickly.

[Maklak]

Some time ago a spambot posted something about a company that sells pumps. Someone asked if they use screw pumps too and a semi-serious discussion about them followed. That was pretty amusing.

[Phlum]

So you can call this a nerco, it doesn't make the idea any less valid.

Just thought some may wish to see this.