Attention moderators and those interested in helping

Discussion in 'Pit Buzz' started by Will Hanna, Jan 5, 2009.

  1. Will Hanna

    Will Hanna We put the 'inside' in Top Alcohol
    Staff Member

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    This spam bot deal is a little more advanced than I had even feared. Upon doing some more research, this latest program is pretty serious about staying ahead of the 'curve' to block them. Some even suggest they read the official vbulletin tech forum to stay on top of methods to beat them.

    Apparently, this is a bot with the help of some humans behind it. We're still researching ways to stop them, one of them we will institute is a tougher challenge question and answer to register, without the answer being in the question. There are confirmed instances of the bot running into a problem with a challenge question, a human coming in and answering the question for them, then the site get's bombed after the question has been busted.

    Fortunately for now, this program is only pushing some bs gold crap mainly, but I fear less appropriate crap may be on the horizon.

    I'd like to hear from my current moderators if they would be willing to be upgraded to admin status for the purpose of verifying new users.

    I really don't want to turn admin approved registration on, but it looks as if it may be our only true option to defeat the spam bots. I think I can handle most of it, as I can get on the internet and this website 95% of the time, but I'd like to have a couple of my mods or new trusted people that could go in and look at new registrations awaiting moderation and approve the good ones and delete the bad ones.

    I really don't want to do this because I personally don't like sites that do this. Sometimes I see a site I want to post on, but have to wait to get approval. It's just a pain in the ass I'm trying to avoid for new users, but we have to maintain the integrity of the site.

    Let me know your thoughts and if a few of you are interested in helping in this task, if necessary. I think it would only take 2 or 3, so if a few of the mods are up for this, we should be good.

    Thanks for everyone's understanding.
     
    #1
    Will Hanna, Jan 5, 2009
  2. RiverQueen

    RiverQueen Moderator

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    Will,

    I have no problem with approving new users if needed. Would we get an email like we do now when someone reports spam to let us know?

    Thanks,
    Shanna
     
    #2
    RiverQueen, Jan 5, 2009
  3. Randy G.

    Randy G. Top Alcohol

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    Will:

    Whatever I can do to help. It's getting old deleting all the spam.

    RG
     
    #3
    Randy G., Jan 5, 2009
  4. Big Sexy

    Big Sexy Member

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    Good Luck Will- I own the Classic Funny Car board, and I had to switch to Admin Approval over a year ago, I was and am getting about 200 spam registrations per day, and with all the htaccess files and hidden registration dumps for bots, I still get nailed.

    I think we are on the wrong side of this. There must be big bucks in spam becaue they try really hard to get in.....
     
    #4
    Big Sexy, Jan 5, 2009
  5. Nathan Sitko - 625 TAD/TAFC

    Nathan Sitko - 625 TAD/TAFC TAD / TAFC

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    I'm in

    Hey Will,

    Anything that I can do to help, I've got no problem verifying new users. Let me know.

    Nathan
     
    #5
    Nathan Sitko - 625 TAD/TAFC, Jan 5, 2009
  6. Dan Lynch

    Dan Lynch Member

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    Being on the East Coast I wake up and log on to check out what the West Coast racers posted over night. As I'm sure you've seen, I have reported my share of spam on here. Let me know if you need some East Coast help, ie early AM...
     
    #6
    Dan Lynch, Jan 5, 2009
  7. nitrohaulic

    nitrohaulic Bracket Racer

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    How about what Nitromater does? Pay the buck to join, it's donated to charity, your name is verified. What if you still had the username of your choice at the top of posts and your actual name in the signature line?
     
    #7
    nitrohaulic, Jan 5, 2009
  8. nitrogal1

    nitrogal1 Wrench Wench

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    I like this idea...I had no problem paying the buck, and the 24 hour wait is a minor inconvenience to know your "talking" to real people.
     
    #8
    nitrogal1, Jan 5, 2009
  9. nitrohaulic

    nitrohaulic Bracket Racer

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    I'm appreciative enough of the parts for sale section here that I wish they'd go even further. Make it like a combination of e-bay and racingjunk. Like the latter, have the option of voluntarily donating a percentage of the sale amount to Will. Make the guy a frickin buck off of this thing. It's a great board and he's out here dealing with spammers and facilitating our parts sales for what?

    Like ebay, have the rating and comment thing. I bet he could make enough off of the dollar amount in parts that go through here in a day to pay someone full time to deal with all this, the dollar registration, and still make a profit. At least there would be a face to the guy behind the site. You'd know that your money is going to someone whose heart is in racing.

    Take two things that already work and use the best features of both. Take what already works and simply apply it where it's not being used. Isn't that what Henry Ford did with the assembly line?

    If people agreed, make this and those posts a sticky so future members can see that the idea and support for it came from appreciate members instead of the greedy (rich?) owner. :D

    If he wanted to go even further, he could combine it with the parts/money forwarding service I've suggested before that SOMEBODY needs to do. Start out small and eventually have offices all over the country. Basic verification that the parts appear to be as described and neither parts or money goes out until both have been received. Have machine shop type inspections as extra services. If you ship a part that isn't as described, it gets held until you prepay the shipping back to you, and the would have been screwed buyer gets most of their money back. After so many days, the parts, if they're worth anything, get sold for storage costs. I bet there's lots of parts out there that don't get advertised on the internet due to the trust issue. Eventually try to get some volume shipping discounts so the twice shipping isn't as expensive.
     
    #9
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2009
    nitrohaulic, Jan 6, 2009
  10. Hokes Racing

    Hokes Racing Moderator

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    I would help with that Did it on NitroSims and it helped keep a lot of those out

    Lanny
     
    #10
    Hokes Racing, Jan 8, 2009

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