should murc become a closed community?

[dZeus]

Over the past 2 months, 641 users joined murc, of which 1 actually posted non-spam messages (and that user posted 1 message).

Should we close down new user signups to battle the horrible spam problem?

[Fat Tone]

No.

[cjolley]

My vote, if I have one, is no.
I haven't noticed what I would call a horrible spam problem.
Less here than my in-box anyway.

[dZeus]

My vote, if I have one, is no.
I haven't noticed what I would call a horrible spam problem.
Less here than my in-box anyway.

that's because the moderators have to delete 10% of all spam messages manually, and 90% is detected by the system and is 'awaiting moderation' (but need to be deleted manually to free up the db space).

I wonder when we'll run out of db space at the rate the spam messages appear for the past few months... only sasq can tell

[Evildead666]

From what I can tell you have to be logged in to do most things, so if that isn't working, making the registration process harder maybe ?

If its real people spamming, there is nowt we can really do...

[Dr Mordrid]

How about adding security images of alphanumeric confirmation codes?

[dZeus]

ok, did some more checking:

since 1 January 2008, we've had 822 user signups.
Out of 822 signups, 16 users actually posted non-spam messages (less than 2 percent). All others posted spam; most of them a LOT of spam messages! The current signup system is definitely not working. Regular captcha has been broken, so I doubt it'll add any security.

[lowlifecat]

if you are worried about the database then perhaps ... trimming Doc M's and Zokes' post count...


/me runs

[Nowhere]

I guess manually accepting admissions, with the requirement for short but coherent motivation for joining (though with my, sometimes, Engrish I could fail such test ), would weed out the bots, both software and wetware based...but wouldn't be neccesarilly less work for moderators?

Still, closing to such degree would be acceptable, I guess. I think I'm against invite-only (though...can you check when was the last registration of a user with a fairly sizeable number of posts? Few of them? Then we could check how many were drawn to MURC by old members...).

Of course, if our goal is world-dominating think-tank, closing to large degree might be usefull

[Brian Ellis]

In my forum, I started getting spammer registrations a few months ago and I guessed a bot had penetrated the captcha. I reset it from medium to high difficulty, since which time no bot has penetrated it - yet! It perhaps makes it more difficult for humans, but I haven't seen a drop in new registrees. Example of the captcha attached.

As a guess, only 1 in 20 registrees ever post anything and about 10 in 20 never come back to read a message, even when their e-mail addresses indicate that they could be interested in the subject matter! Why?

[KRSESQ]

my guess is simple bad memory. They forget passwords and they forget what drew them in to begin with. They get busy in WoW and don't follow up queries. My own memory for such things is awful. That's why I rarely sign up for online forums.

Kevin

[az]

We shouldnt close down, but we should make the registration process harder.

[Adis]

Answer is here:

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=198359

You should prune inactive users from time to time (zero posters).

[TransformX]

Most extreme I can think of is making the murc an invite only forum? Then again, how would a stranger get an invitation?

[Adis]

Features in this hack can be disabled/adjusted to fit MURC needs.

You can enable invitation system, but disable option where users must have invitation code to register. So we can invite our friends easily, but others can join too.

Also you can enable registration questions to stop bots. :-)