Another WEG Forum Problem

[The Dark]

Hi guys. Recently registered and also on the WEG forums. Same nickname. Actually I have registered 3 times with the name on the WEG forums. Each time I receive my activation request by email to - steven dot t dot moore (at) gmail dot com and I activate. Receive my confirmation.

Everything is OK until I try to login and am told that my name or password are wrong and when I ask to have my username and password sent to my email I am told that the email is not recognized.

What's up? Anybody?

Thanks

[hellsreach]

Due to spam overload, new members are placed on "probation" until they make their first post (which is moderated). I regulation mass-eject probationary members -- usually which amount to spam accounts in the dozens.

For probationary members to become full memeber you must either:

1) Make an initial post, on subject. Only I'll see that post at first. It is best to post to an existing thread and not make your own new one. After I approve that message, you will automatically be upgrade to an approved member within 30 minutes.

or 2) PM me after singing up and confirming your account and let me know you are looking for full membership, but have not, or don't want to post yet.

or do both just to make sure.

[The Dark]

OK. WIll do. I also posted a new thread about this on the WEG Forums and was told that it would be held for approval.

Thanks.

[The Game Guy]

We have been lucky, we have only had one spammer and we were able to block them at the server level so they were not able to get back.

I am not sure why the West End Games forums are such a magnet for spam. I have seen other forums get spam, but not at the level the WEG forums do.

I think with the forums being so quiet the spammers think no one is watching (incorrect of course) and they can just spam to their hearts content.

[skeloric]

I think with the forums being so quiet the spammers think no one is watching (incorrect of course) and they can just spam to their hearts content.
I think the same.
I've never seen such a deluge elsewhere.

[Grimace]

Heh... I think, maybe, you just either haven't noticed the level of spammers at other places or the moderators/admin of other sites have taken extra measures to keep it in check. Over on the Holonet forums at SWRPGNetwork.com we were getting 300 spam account signups PER DAY. I'm still in the process of cleaning that mess up. We had to take steps to stop the flood from becoming outright ridiculous. The thing is, though, with the assorted checks that are in place, you don't see spam posts on that site. If you look real closely, you can see the evidence of the underlying problem, but as a whole the spammers aren't blatantly obvious.

So there are certainly other sites that have the spammer problem, some even worse than WEG had, it's just sometimes the others "hide" the problem a little better.

[The Game Guy]

I think the same.
I've never seen such a deluge elsewhere.

I have seen forums with spam problems but never the problems the WEG forums has.

Though I think that if there were more moderators then just Hellsreach that would help. I am not sure if he blocks IP addresses and IP ranges, but it helps stop the spammers in their tracks.

[The Game Guy]

Heh... I think, maybe, you just either haven't noticed the level of spammers at other places or the moderators/admin of other sites have taken extra measures to keep it in check. Over on the Holonet forums at SWRPGNetwork.com we were getting 300 spam account signups PER DAY. I'm still in the process of cleaning that mess up. We had to take steps to stop the flood from becoming outright ridiculous. The thing is, though, with the assorted checks that are in place, you don't see spam posts on that site. If you look real closely, you can see the evidence of the underlying problem, but as a whole the spammers aren't blatantly obvious.

Yep. I am curious, do you just delete the spam or do you block the spammers IP addresses?

[hellsreach]

No, I just delete them. That said... spam really ISN'T a problem. Nobody but me ever sees a spam post on the WEG forums. While my method is a tad bit draconian, it is effective, no?

[The Game Guy]

No, I just delete them. That said... spam really ISN'T a problem. Nobody but me ever sees a spam post on the WEG forums. While my method is a tad bit draconian, it is effective, no?

Well actually if you blocked their ip addresses and ranges you could effectivly block them from being able to get back to the site.

Eventually the spam you have to deal with would drop to none (or rarely a spam) and you could eventually remove the moderation.

I am sure its a few spammers spamming from a specific IP block. It makes sense to block their IP ranges and kill all the spammer accounts.

[Grimace]

Blocking IP ranges works unless you have real members of the site that fall within that range. That's one of the problems you start experiencing when you get 6,000 members that are real people. You can't outright block a range from some Russian area because you could very easily have a real person mixed in with an IP number that happens to fall within that range. We did that once on the Holonet and got emails from a couple of people who said they couldn't access the site anymore.

So we were stuck with having to ban individual IPs if they actually became a problem.

The problem with spammers is they rarely sit on one IP address for very long. We lucked out that any of the "robot spammers" get stuck in our filter that requires a living person to receive an email back, follow a link, and then activate their account. So the hundreds and hundreds of robot spammers only get so far as to pre-register, but never get fully registered and therefore can never post. Only a spammer with a real person at the helm can get through our sign up filter. Unfortunately, they were still causing so many pre-register accounts that it was bogging down the system. Typically we had about 50 spam accounts a day attempting to be created. When it got to over 300 a day we had to take more severe measures to put a stop to it.

[Whill]

I don't understand how IP addresses are assigned, may change, or what area they cover.

And I don't know about Russia, but here in Ohio I registered for a new website my computer had never visited, and I got a message saying that my IP was blocked. I sent a message to the administrator and I convinced him that I really had never been to that website before and that I despise spam. He released the IP and allowed me to register. He said that maybe someone from my same apartment complex was blocked, or maybe even the person who lived in my same apartment before me.

So I truly appreciate any efforts to block spammers, but it definitely wouldn't be fair to block people who happen to have the same IP address as a spammer.

[hellsreach]

Unfortunately, most people on the internet do not have static addresses. The get their address from a DHCP pool. That is, they may have access to hundred or thousands of IP addresses. These address almost always exists as a mere few logical blocks and you can filter them all, but that block way also server tens of thousands of honest would-be users.

Like I said though, the solution I have going now is effective, unlike when I was blocking IP's, I've not had a single spammer get through my iron grip since I started it. The only evidence one sees of their existence is an entry for a "newest member" and a slightly inaccurate count on the number of users on the site and the only person that seems to bother is Skeloric, and -- love you to death Skel, you are like WEG's personal psychotic mascot -- your issue with the non-effective spammers is pretty much irrational and bordering on lunacy. :)

[skeloric]

-- love you to death Skel, you are like WEG's personal psychotic mascot --
:D Hey, I resemble that remark. :D

[The Game Guy]

Unfortunately, most people on the internet do not have static addresses. The get their address from a DHCP pool. That is, they may have access to hundred or thousands of IP addresses. These address almost always exists as a mere few logical blocks and you can filter them all, but that block way also server tens of thousands of honest would-be users.

Dude, I work in IT, I know how it works. While i understand few people have static IP addresses I can figure out that if a spam is posted from 200.34.112.7 one day, is deleted and then the next day I get a similar spam from 200.34.112.12 I know that most likely a spammer has a block of spams and I will put in my block list 200.34.112 that blocks the entire range.

Haven't gotten any emails about people not being able to get back to the site. And probably after awhile after the spammer has given up because they cannot get back I may remove the IP block from the range.

I only IP block the forum, that way if there is a mistake the user can email me and let me know.

[hellsreach]

Dude, I work in IT, I know how it works. While i understand few people have static IP addresses I can figure out that if a spam is posted from 200.34.112.7 one day, is deleted and then the next day I get a similar spam from 200.34.112.12 I know that most likely a spammer has a block of spams and I will put in my block list 200.34.112 that blocks the entire range.

Haven't gotten any emails about people not being able to get back to the site. And probably after awhile after the spammer has given up because they cannot get back I may remove the IP block from the range.

I only IP block the forum, that way if there is a mistake the user can email me and let me know.

I while back I did the IP blocking technique and it did ver little to stem the tide.

[The Game Guy]

I while back I did the IP blocking technique and it did ver little to stem the tide.

I guess I got lucky and it worked for me. Of course I did it serverside, I didnt do it in the forum software itself.