chrono Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Mackuf has placed in appropriate material on the hub 2 forum and i think it is disgusting how easy it was for them to do so. Children as well as adults use this sight and i find it disgusting. Please can you have a much stronger procedure before posts are posted on the forum as for the young people watching and reading the forums this is totally unacceptable it seems to be gone showmasters but please keep in mind the waring i mentioned Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Steve Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 This has been happening on and off for several months. Spammers sign p and post all kinds of things in every topic listed. I remember the first ever Eclipse forum was blitzed with it on a regular basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrono Posted February 8, 2009 Author Share Posted February 8, 2009 Mackuf has placed in appropriate material on the hub 2 forum and i think it is disgusting how easy it was for them to do so. Children as well as adults use this sight and i find it disgusting. Please can you have a much stronger procedure before posts are posted on the forum as for the young people watching and reading the forums this is totally unacceptable it seems to be gone showmasters but please keep in mind the waring i mentioned Sorry SM it keeps coming and going if u want a link tell me to send u one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators mrsclairecarter Posted February 8, 2009 Moderators Share Posted February 8, 2009 We deleted these topics as soon as we can but we can't be on here 24 hours a day sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nosfer2 Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Mackuf has placed in appropriate material on the hub 2 forum and i think it is disgusting how easy it was for them to do so. Children as well as adults use this sight and i find it disgusting. Please can you have a much stronger procedure before posts are posted on the forum as for the young people watching and reading the forums this is totally unacceptable it seems to be gone showmasters but please keep in mind the waring i mentioned Sorry SM it keeps coming and going if u want a link tell me to send u one If you see something inappropriate, click on "Report" and tell the moderators. Sometimes it's generated by spambots (often indicated by a very low post count). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Steve Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 I post on a number of forums, including some which have more members than this, and they don't have this problem. They need to do something to prevent new members being able to post straight away by perhaps sending a validation email to activate the account, which spambots might not be able to do, or contact the board designers and ask if anything can be done to prevent it. It has gone on for too long to be acceptable now and some of the images posted in the past have involved people doing things to animals which my eyes never should have seen. I know SM has no control over it, but there are steps they can take to prevent it, and I don't feel enough is being done. I'm an adult and feel some of these images are inappropriate for me and I'm not easily offended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avengers7 Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 (edited) I have mentioned this many times as my young nephew uses the computer under supervision. I think some of the Spam we have had on here in the past has been disgusting so I completely agree with King Steve. Surely something can be done! Edited February 8, 2009 by reddragon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psychosis Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 (edited) Unfortunately Invision is (no offence) outdated technology that's not very user friendly and doesn't allow a huge amount of customisation in the vein of vBulletin. I have a VB and even then it required over a month of hacking the crap out of it and adding long winded processes before we saw the spambots disappear. There is, however, a simple way to do it that involves time and patience. Require manual user approval and add a compulsory custom field with some kind of question that would highlight that this person is in fact human and genuine. There also lists of IP addresses and email addresses out there that can be checked for validity. .ru email addresses, for example, are almost an instant no-no. If you don't have time to approve manually (I wouldn't blame you) then you could add a new moderator or staff member in a custom usergroup which gives them member approval/ban/rejection privilege but no access to other areas of the admin panel. It's been a while since I checked the invision admin CP but I think you can also enable ban privileges in mods, but I know most places don't like to do that. Edited February 8, 2009 by Psychosis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DavidB Posted February 8, 2009 Moderators Share Posted February 8, 2009 The spam members are banned as soon as anyone notices them. Sometimes before they even post if we can confirm IP addresses through comparison searches etc. Ideally I'd go for something additional to the signup process, like the manual question etc. I'm sure that works most of the time. To be honest though, the spam topics are usually pretty obvious, so people who don't know what they are shouldn't be looking into them if they think there's gonna be inappropriate images etc. Especially those who complain on a regular basis - you know what it's going to be, so you're only bringing it on yourself. And if a young person is using this forum 'under supervision' then I can't see how they'd be allowed to look at the topics. I always know which ones are spam when I'm looking through. On here, they're very rarely disguised as anything relevant. It's as much up to adults to be responsible with younger members as it is SMs responsibility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrono Posted February 8, 2009 Author Share Posted February 8, 2009 The spam members are banned as soon as anyone notices them. Sometimes before they even post if we can confirm IP addresses through comparison searches etc. Ideally I'd go for something additional to the signup process, like the manual question etc. I'm sure that works most of the time. To be honest though, the spam topics are usually pretty obvious, so people who don't know what they are shouldn't be looking into them if they think there's gonna be inappropriate images etc. Especially those who complain on a regular basis - you know what it's going to be, so you're only bringing it on yourself. And if a young person is using this forum 'under supervision' then I can't see how they'd be allowed to look at the topics. I always know which ones are spam when I'm looking through. On here, they're very rarely disguised as anything relevant. It's as much up to adults to be responsible with younger members as it is SMs responsibility. Excuse me I totally agree with manual supervision and i think it is quite a poor excuse to use the excuse that we shouldnt click on what were not sure on, I agree caution is required, but sumtimes people may put random threads on the forum woth funny names but this shouldnt stop us. I apologise greatly if u are taking me the wrong way because i am concerned and not angry at any of you guys in particular but this should be a friendly space where people should be able to click to find the latest information and updates on the convention (and all conventions). Technically the tickets do range to children also so why should they have to fear of such things. So please we need to stand up and think of this in the way that we cannot allow any old thing to be posted. I am purely concerned for the audience watching and we must remember this is not targetted for 18+ (although i am not justifying the material). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enty Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 I have a 9 year old who is begining to go online. She recently joined the forum under her own name but because I know this is predominantely an adult forum I monitor her constantly. She goes to Sm and ME events so I see no reason not to let her read the announcements and she has placed a few posts. I think its up to parents to be vigilant and not blame SM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sazzra Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Well said, enty. Anyone who has kids and allows them to just look at what they want can't blame anyone except themselves for the consequences. If you're worried about what kids see, install monitoring software, simple as that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators DavidB Posted February 8, 2009 Moderators Share Posted February 8, 2009 Excuse me I totally agree with manual supervision and i think it is quite a poor excuse to use the excuse that we shouldnt click on what were not sure on, I agree caution is required, but sumtimes people may put random threads on the forum woth funny names but this shouldnt stop us. I apologise greatly if u are taking me the wrong way because i am concerned and not angry at any of you guys in particular but this should be a friendly space where people should be able to click to find the latest information and updates on the convention (and all conventions). Technically the tickets do range to children also so why should they have to fear of such things. So please we need to stand up and think of this in the way that we cannot allow any old thing to be posted. I am purely concerned for the audience watching and we must remember this is not targetted for 18+ (although i am not justifying the material). Yes, you can click to find the latest information and updates on the convention, but why would you click on a topic with a strange title? All the important informative topics are basically pinned to the top of the sections anyway, with clear and understandable titles. Anything that looks weird should be taken with a little common sense and not looked at IF someone is concerned about what they (or indeed their children) see. I look because I have to. I have to see if they are spam, and whether I need to remove them etc. So it's something I suffer. But everyone else can be as cautious as they want really. It's NOT an excuse, it's just the same as other random links that appear elsewhere, whether it be downloads or just site links etc. If I'm not sure about something, I DON'T click on it. I'd suggest everyone else takes a common sense approach to it too. Why should they have to fear such things? Well, it's the Internet. I'm afraid these things happen, not just here but other places too. Yes, the tickets go to children too, but that isn't entirely relevant. It's the responsibility of parents just as much as anyone else. But that could be a debate to go on forever. I'm not saying SMs can't do more if they tried. But the moderators spend a hell of a lot of time clearing out stuff as much as we can, and we can't really be held responsible for what people decide to click on when they could easily just leave it alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Queen_Sindel Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 (edited) They need to do something to prevent new members being able to post straight away by perhaps sending a validation email to activate the account, which spambots might not be able to do, or contact the board designers and ask if anything can be done to prevent it. Actually the validation e-mail systen is in place. As it has been mentioned, most of the spam bots never make it through the validation process, but some do. I'm checking the system several times a day and ban known spammer IPs, but we can not control the forum 24/7. I probably would have caught mackuf on my early morning round too, but something came up and this is the first time I got online today. Unfortunately I've seen a lot of "bot IDs" with the status "looking at user profiles" lately. Of course I am not a spammer so I have no idea if this is technically possible or not, but this has raised suspicion with me that there's actually humans posting some of those inappropriate material. If it is humans, no forum set up will be able to stop them. Excuse me I totally agree with manual supervision and i think it is quite a poor excuse to use the excuse that we shouldnt click on what were not sure on, I agree caution is required, but sumtimes people may put random threads on the forum woth funny names but this shouldnt stop us. Do those topics always include names of US states or American towns (that was the biggest wave we were dealing with) done by posters with IDs that make no sense? I saw a post of you in one of the topics in the morning asking the spam poster why 'it' was posting this again, you had seen several posts in the last days and if I remember correctly actually clicked on those. At least most of the spam bots are easy to recognize, especially if they follow patterns. I am not saying that 'please use caution' is the perfect solution. But the moderators are really doing what we can with the resources we have. Edited February 8, 2009 by Queen_Sindel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeDonovan Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 I agree that there are more secure board systems than this (although there are a lot worse). However, if parents want to limit what their kids can see on the 'interweb', there are a million ways to stop it. You can stop content based on rules at the router level. You can use blacklists, or whitelists. You can use something invasive like NetNanny. I know a lot of parents use the excuse that they aren't 'tech-savvy', but without wanting to be cruel, go and read a book - really it isn't rocket science. For example, if you did something basic like cutting off content at router level based on a word blacklist, that would instantly stop your child viewing such content, whether that's on a post on a board, or through a google search. You can't defer total responsibility to others to 'defend' your child against content you deem to be inappropriate for it - you need to take some level of responsibility yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avengers7 Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 And if a young person is using this forum 'under supervision' then I can't see how they'd be allowed to look at the topics. I always know which ones are spam when I'm looking through. On here, they're very rarely disguised as anything relevant. It's as much up to adults to be responsible with younger members as it is SMs responsibility. I think you'll find I said uses the computer not the forum. Hence why I think every child should be supervised. However, I have seen 1 or 2 Spam which have been disguised as something else. These were reported and removed straight away but it doesn't stop people from being worried! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrono Posted February 8, 2009 Author Share Posted February 8, 2009 Although i do congratulate showmasters for their excellent speed of removing the threat once they knew exactly that it was there and what it was Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbird Posted February 8, 2009 Share Posted February 8, 2009 Being an American who tends to stay up late, I've noticed that a lot of these things are posted at times when most sensible people in the UK are sleeping (e.g., near midnight on the US East Coast, which would mean somewhere between 4:00 and 6:00 AM in Britain). I hope this bit of curiosity isn't inappropriate, but might SM have someone (or know someone trustworthy) on this side of the pond who might be willing to help remove this stuff and ban the IPs? Even without that bit of added moddage (which could either be helpful or troublesome, as life is capricious that way), I do think that SM are doing the best they can about this problem with the software and staff they have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Steve Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 David, the particular spam I mentioned earlier was not a topic I opened with a strange title, it was some on going discussion post about something which I can't remember now. I did report it though and it was removed fairly quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Showmasters Admin Massive Events Posted February 9, 2009 Showmasters Admin Share Posted February 9, 2009 Hi there everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I am going to look into if there is anything further we can do to stop the amount of inappropriate spam that is posted on this forum. I am not particularly technically minded, so I do not know the answer myself, but I will be consulting with people who hopefully will know what we can do. I agree that something has to be done, firstly because some of the material posted is highly inappropriate and secondly to save the sanity of our moderators who spend far to much of their own time clearing the board up. Please be assured I am onto this and hopefully we will have a solution very soon and you should see much less or no more spam on the forum very soon. Thanks for your patience on this and I apologise in advance to anyone who has seen and been offended by any of the posts. Take care, Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scruffy Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Is there a way of restricting the first 10 or so new posts of an individual to only be allowed while a mod is online. That way if the board was open to new posters only when a mod is online then any inappropriate matter can be deleted immediately. If a genuine new poster urgently needed help then I am sure they can email SM rather than post. I dont like to see these spam posts but have to say find them easy to spot and would never open them in the first place. I do find it hard to believe that some very young kids are allowed to browse our forums even with parental guidance, not sure what they would be looking to see . Surely pointing them in the direction of the websites is a far healther option when so young as they hold all the info regarding events and guests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enty Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 I do find it hard to believe that some very young kids are allowed to browse our forums even with parental guidance, not sure what they would be looking to see . Surely pointing them in the direction of the websites is a far healther option when so young as they hold all the info regarding events and guests. Sarah comes online to read where people are coming from that are attending events she is going to, she cosplays and likes to see what others are costuming as. If I am with her I dont see why she should be excluded. She never goes into topics that I havent checked out beforehand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbird Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Hi there everyone, I just wanted to let you know that I am going to look into if there is anything further we can do to stop the amount of inappropriate spam that is posted on this forum. I am not particularly technically minded, so I do not know the answer myself, but I will be consulting with people who hopefully will know what we can do. I agree that something has to be done, firstly because some of the material posted is highly inappropriate and secondly to save the sanity of our moderators who spend far to much of their own time clearing the board up. Please be assured I am onto this and hopefully we will have a solution very soon and you should see much less or no more spam on the forum very soon. Thanks for your patience on this and I apologise in advance to anyone who has seen and been offended by any of the posts. Take care, Mark Thank you, Mark! I have some idea of how big a problem this is, and I wish you every piece of good luck with your efforts to sort it. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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