Guest forum mask policy

Flemingovia

Flemingovia

TNPer
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I am posting this here so that hopefully the maximum number of people will see and respond. Since this is not really a regional assembly matter, I will understand if the Speaker wants to move this thread.

We are getting an increasing number of porn spammers/spambots. Since most of you probably have all the porn links you need :fish: I am proposing a change in our forum policy - which others have also suggested.

The spammers nearly always do not register before posting, and our rather lax forum policy makes this easy.

I propose that we look at preventing guests from posting. This can be done either by...

1. Requiring all users to log in before visiting the forum.

2. Manually changing the settings on each forum so that guests can view what they can now, but cannot post or start topics.

Either would probably get rid of the spambots, and make dealing with manual spammers much easier.

Thoughts?
 
I am one of those who are advocating a change.

I should note that it is possible to put guest posters IPs on the ban list, but I must have added about 30 just from yesterday. There were a few exact duplicate IPs among that group, and they seem to come from three or so ill-defined IP ranges.

I suspect that the preferred approach is to prevent guests from posting unless they create a user account and register with the forum. I understand the need to have guests be able to read the totally public areas of the forum, but I am uncertain how a "guests must register to view" policy would go over with NS players.
 
As Immigration Minister, I advise that we don't make things too unwelcoming to visitors.

We need to let visitors see what goes on before they make a decision to join or not.

I suggest that visitors can view all forums that a basic member can, but not have any posting privileges until they register.

That solves the spammerbot problem without making us unfriendly to those windowshopping and deciding whether to join us or not.
 
No posting rights for guests...

When someone signs up for the forum, they are put by default in a user group. Make it so that this user group does not have permission to post new threads, but can reply to them. An admin will have to edit each account to move them to a user group which can start new threads, but this will eliminate spam-bots altogether. Spam bots aren't smart enough to reply to threads, they merely try to create a new thread. If they can't, then they are unable to post anything. If the new account is a legitimate player, the player can be informed of the validation procedure in the welcome forum.
 
Our resident spammer bot started out by replying to a thread.

All your plan would do is create a bunch of red-tape for new members and a pile of work for our moderation staff.

Besides, we haven't had a spammerbot actually join the forum, so all we really have to do is eliminate guest posting rights.
 
We have had spambots register accounts I believe.

The best solution seems like it would be to make all the boards not postable to by guests.
 
I feel that the best solution to make 100% sure that porn is never again posted on this forum is to disable posting rights for all members. Also, no more avatars or signatures either. That will show 'em!
 
Blue Wolf II:
I feel that the best solution to make 100% sure that porn is never again posted on this forum is to disable posting rights for all members. Also, no more avatars or signatures either. That will show 'em!
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But if we disallow porn on this site, we'd only have 99 bajillion places left on the internet left for porn!
 
My point: you missed it.

It's not about the porn (for once), I'm simply pointing out that banning guests from posting will not stop the spammers, they will just make actual accounts and become that much more annoying.
 
Not allowing guests to post without registering allows the moderation team to deal with TOS violators. It makes it easier to deal with spammers and spambots in having more information to use to identify the origins of where the spam is coming from.

Flem, would you agree that there is a consensus towards limiting guests to view and not post on these forums?
 
Blue Wolf II:
My point: you missed it.

It's not about the porn (for once), I'm simply pointing out that banning guests from posting will not stop the spammers, they will just make actual accounts and become that much more annoying.
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It's called a joke. I know, I'm not very good at it.
 
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