Should I Restrict The Ability For New Members To Personal Message?

[Steve Herschbach]

Well, we just had a Nigerian join and pull the classic Nigerian scam. He sent PM messages to I do not know how many members about needing help with collecting some funds, you get a lot of it for helping, blah, blah, blah. Luckily he sent me one so I shut it down in 20 minutes, but in twenty minutes he could have spammed a lot of people. If I had not caught him, in a couple days he could have really went wild. At least one new member asked that his account be deleted after getting it, as he thought getting it was a consequence of joining the forum. 

Over 30% of first time posters are now spammers. The worst are the "sleeper" spammers, who post, then go back and edit the post a week or two later to include a spam link. They like to quote somebody, then go back later and bury a link in the quote - makes it look like the person the quoted put in the link, not them.

And a few are just burying a link in a line that looks like this:

______

just somewhere it might not be noticed. Obviously not a "click on this link" so much as trying to boost Google ranking by making it look like this site links to their site.

We are getting lots of one time posters on the Rock forum who post a bunch of photos saying "what is this" and never respond to the people who take time trying to help identify the photos. I suspect they are just using this site to host photos for use elsewhere, since it's often ten photos, not one.

To sum up, maybe one or two out of a hundred new members actually hangs around and posts more than once or twice. The rest are spammers or lurkers.

Long story short is I am again considering creating a "New Member" account for new members, that basically only allows them to post text. No links, no photos, no PMs, no editing of posts, nothing but text, until they have made 10 posts over a 30 day period or more. That eliminates somebody just slamming out ten junk posts quick. After proving they are a person who really is interested in being a participating member, then they can have access to the other stuff.

It's either that or at some point I'll just stop accepting new members unless it is by request or recommendation, which would obviously tend to suppress new membership. But oh well. Right now every day first thing I have to review all new members, plus periodically do a deep dive into older new members going back for months to catch the sleeper agents. I'm not particularly busy at the moment and it's all fine, and in a way I'm just whining a bit at the moment. But if my life does get busier for some reason, or I just get tired of the sheer volume of the nonsense, I may put some sort of brake on things. That does not affect any of you per se, other than the possibility new members do not replace members that leave fast enough, and the forum does not grow like it has been, or even starts to slow down. People might think that prospect would be something I would care about, but it's much less so than people might imagine. I'm not a social media butterfly chasing eyeballs and outside of this forum can't be found online anywhere else, and being offline entirely is more a dream than a threat. 

[SeabeeRon]

3 minutes ago, Steve Herschbach said:

Long story short is I am again considering creating a "New Member" account for new members, that basically only allows them to post text. No links, no photos, no PMs, no editing of posts, nothing but text, until they have made 10 posts over a 30 day period or more. That eliminates somebody just slamming out ten junk posts quick. After proving they are a person who really is interested in being a participating member, then they can have access to the other stuff.

This sounds like a reasonable way to handle this problem!

Just wondering Steve, do you have to run this forum all by yourself or do you have some Admins and/or Moderators to help?  It can be a big job!

[Steve Herschbach]

32 minutes ago, SeabeeRon said:

This sounds like a reasonable way to handle this problem!

Just wondering Steve, do you have to run this forum all by yourself or do you have some Admins and/or Moderators to help?  It can be a big job!

Hugh (Chase Goldman) has been a big help. Moderators are great at taking care of old fashioned fights and such. Watching for and chasing down these spammers is what is getting to be more problematic. I'm pretty sure on lots of forums the solution is just ignore it. So what if a post made a month ago suddenly spouts a link to some "write college papers for free" website? It's not noticeable in current conversation, which is where most moderator efforts are focused.

But yeah, being a detail oriented control freak I do all the background and more tedious stuff. Maybe I'm part of the problem as I just don't like spammers. 

[Doc Bach]

Probably so for the ones like myself. You know the type.... The ones that are a bit too cagey or shy about formerly introducing themselves.

[rvpopeye]

Steve

They're getting trickier !🤔

Links to a couple of sites we use on my forums to weed out the scammers.

(which is down to almost none now that we took your lead and deleted the zero posters.

THX for the idea ! )

We now require 1 post within a month and 10 posts before allowing links.  

All newbs have to be approved before posting access is granted.

(I think the 10 post minimum was the most effective part of our effort.) 

 

Also , The vast majority of our spammers have (had) an email ending in .ru  

I have a member that was traveling in Russia and I kept allowing them in , thinking he was recruiting new members........not anymore..I  purged their sorry butts.     I just had a thought that their internet  might be restricted right now too ?

 

The first is an IP lookup that gives several locations . I found that I developed a feel for this after seeing patterns and repeated providers over the first few months.

https://www.iplocation.net/ 

This one my IT girl found and uses. I used it only once but she said she liked it.

https://scamalytics.com/ip/api/pricing

[Gold Seeker]

5 minutes ago, rvpopeye said:

Steve

They're getting trickier !🤔

Links to a couple of sites we use on my forums to weed out the scammers.

(which is down to almost none now that we took your lead and deleted the zero posters.

THX for the idea ! )

We now require 1 post within a month and 10 posts before allowing links.  

All newbs have to be approved before posting access is granted.

(I think the 10 post minimum was the most effective part of our effort.) 

 

Also , The vast majority of our spammers have (had) an email ending in .ru  

I have a member that was traveling in Russia and I kept allowing them in , thinking he was recruiting new members........not anymore..I  purged their sorry butts.     I just had a thought that their internet  might be restricted right now too ?

 

The first is an IP lookup that gives several locations . I found that I developed a feel for this after seeing patterns and repeated providers over the first few months.

https://www.iplocation.net/ 

This one my IT girl found and uses. I used it only once but she said she liked it.

https://scamalytics.com/ip/api/pricing

I use the following site.

https://www.stopforumspam.com/

[rvpopeye]

Thx , I'll check it out  ! 🥸

🖖

[David N.]

New member?  Check.

Never posted (until now)?  Check.

Considering making a first post asking what kind of rocks are these?  Another check, but I guess it would be a second post now.

I even received a PM yesterday that was probably the scammer.  It was gone before I could log in and read it, but I could tell from the email notification that it was likely a scam.

I not a scammer, nor a sleeper, but I am likely to mostly be a lurker.  The more active posters here know so much more than me that I doubt I'll have much to say other than ask questions, and even then I can usually find more information to read up on before asking than I have time to fully go through.  That said, I can understand forbidding new members from sending PM until they have first posted, but I would think a lower threshold could serve the same purpose.  Another forum I'm on stills allows new members to send PMs without making posts, but will ban anyone trying to sell via PM without prior posts.  This was due to a significant number of new members who all had a "friend George in Ohio" that seems to have everything anyone wants to buy at unbelievably good prices.

If you do clamp down on us, I would ask that you at least allow a couple photos.  It might take me a year or more to get to the 10 post requirement to find out what these rocks are.

[FishBamboo]

Steve,

I don't recall getting any spam emails on your site. I think you have a good idea and if it makes life easier to run your forum, go for it. I learned a long time ago to not make something you really enjoy become a business, then it turns into a overwhelming job. Sooner or later you may get frustrated and simply not want to do it any more. In my opinion, for anyone who wants to sell something, the idea of knowing either who they're buying from or selling to seems more secure. If someone whats to have anyone in the world contact them to make a sale, there is always eBay or FB marketplace just to name a few. In my humble opinion, you are what makes this site unique and too valuable to get burned out with it.

S.

[Knomad]

Quote

Long story short is I am again considering creating a "New Member" account for new members, that basically only allows them to post text. No links, no photos, no PMs, no editing of posts, nothing but text, until they have made 10 posts over a 30 day period or more. That eliminates somebody just slamming out ten junk posts quick. After proving they are a person who really is interested in being a participating member, then they can have access to the other stuff.

Seems Reasonable to Me.

Boy I wish I had more free time, I would travel and nugget hunt.

Take Care.