Strange That We Can't Report Abuse Here

[Ex_Brit]

I see many spam posts in the forums and no report abuse button anywhere, rather odd considering it's a feature on other Invision powered boards.

[Lking]

Yes today seems to be a heavy harvest.  It you look along the top of each post you will see, some what grayed out, "Posted X hours ago Report post."  If you mouse over "Report post" you can report the post, bringing it to my attention.  Given your time zone, you may see a vile post before I do.

[Ex_Brit]

OMG, so there is, these ageing eyes missed it completely.....thanks ;-)

[lisati]

There seems to have been a flurry of spammy posts here in recent months. It's a shame that forum posts don't count towards building Spamcop's database.

[Lking]

6 hours ago, lisati said:

It's a shame that forum posts don't count towards building Spamcop's database.

Yes but obviously a horse of a different color.  In the past spam here was reported to Stop forum spam. Under the old software I thank there was access to the DB so collecting the required data was somewhat automated.  With the new software collecting the same information from several different screens is a drag and then entering the data into their submit screen or an app is another issue. But in and around my other life I'm working on some way to make it happen.

[lisati]

True, I had thought of SFS,  but have no admin/mod experience of the Invision software used here that would be of help automating the process.

[Ex_Brit]

At least one of the forums I moderate on use "spam-O-Matic" which seems quite effective in blocking stuff, and what gets through is easy to report or delete in bulk and deactivates the poster at the same time.

@Lking If volunteer Moderators are needed here, I am offering my services.

Stop Forum spam mentioned earlier is really just a reference point to check IP's and names against  a list of what people report but it has no use in preventing spam in the first place.

One step you could take in Invision is utilise flood control to only allow 1 post every 90 seconds or so and perhaps employ a more rigorous membership enrollment process, just suggestions.

I remember my old Invision board, it took ages to get it into shape as I kept finding better and better add-ons and coding to improve things.

[Ex_Brit]

One thing that differs between this board and others is that reported posts remain visible.  I find that odd.

Browsing around I came across this regarding spam and it's FREE !!:  https://invisioncommunity.com/features/spam

[Lking]

6 hours ago, Ex_Brit said:

One step you could take in Invision is utilise flood control to only allow 1 post every 90 seconds or so and perhaps employ a more rigorous membership enrollment process, just suggestions.

Good suggestion, but the current wave of spam has been primarily one post/user name.  For example today only one user made two post. Same for the last couple of days.

As for visibility of reported post ~ good point.  My first look in the admin section I did not see the this option.  Will keep looking.

[Ex_Brit]

OK, thx

[Dave_L]

17 hours ago, Lking said:

...  In the past spam here was reported to Stop forum spam. ...

Does this site have a "honey pot"?

Re:  https://www.projecthoneypot.org/

If not, that's fairly easy to set up.

[Lking]

No it doesn't to my knowledge, but I do not have access at that level to check. I do have them all over domains I manage.

Cisco is paying others, invisionpower, the ISP/host, to maintain the forum software. They would need to add a honey pot and/or insert links into the software. Again like SFS Project Honey Pot only provides a source to lookup IPs to filter new members.  In both cases unless you use their lookup function, all you get is good karma.

[Ex_Brit]

Which sort of limits what you can do.  Understood.

[Dave_L]

Lking: Do you have access to the forum's admin control panel (or whatever it's called)? If so, you might be able to piggyback onto one of your existing honeypots, using the QuickLinks feature.

https://www.projecthoneypot.org/faq.php#f

 

[Lking]

2 hours ago, Dave_L said:

using the QuickLinks feature.

To add a QuickLink you need to be able to modify one of the html/php/... files so that a harvester can find it. Haven't looked at the admin ability to format a new page/add a link (invisible to normal users) by inserting html to a page. Take a look for that.  Most user inputs to these forums are stored as DB entries and thus invisible to email harvesters, which are the target for PHP (Project Honey Pot).

[Dave_L]

Are the people who can make such changes completely out of the loop?

[Lking]

I think they are in a different loop with Cisco.  It is not clear to me that there is a union in the Venn diagram between that loop and the forum users/admin.

 

[Lking]

Without access to the DB I took another look at the SFS process. It takes me a little over a minute to manually fill in the SFS form: 1) cut and past the spam example, 2) type in the IP address (Admin can see it) 3) mouse over the poster's user name to display their profile and c/p the email (again Admin can see it) 4) type in the user name.

So have reported all forum spammers the last few days.  Wish the drop-off in spam was related.  Have you noticed NO spam this weekend?

[Dave_L]

Venn diagram

Your post motivated me to do some research on John Venn. He has an interesting resume:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Venn

http://www.famousinventors.org/john-venn

 

It's too bad he's not around to help with the spam issues.