Aphelion

In order to distinguish between spammers or would-be spammers and legitimate Members, please

avoid using gmail, hotmail, or yahoo mail if possible, as these are used by most spammers and malware spambots

use a username and e-mail account that does NOT look like random gibberish (even if it means something to you...)

make at least one post (not just a PM to vote for a Flash Challenge) that is clearly NOT spam (i.e., refers to details in a story, poem, or article, or makes specific comments (NOT just quoting a passage) to another post in the same Topic), preferably soon after registering.

We have over 2700 "members" plus 60 or so "inactive members" on file, of which a relative handful are actual contributors to the Forum. Every day, 100 or more "inactive members" are registered, plus as many as 50 "active members" (those listed if you click on the "Members" button next to the "Logout" button near the top of the screen who have a non-blank "last active date"). It takes constant policing to keep the members file from getting even more out of control. Following the guidelines above will make it easier to weed out the fake members from the real ones.

(One of the December 2011 / January 2012 authors registered and posted a note in the topic relating to her story, and I inadvertently deleted her account in a mass purge... something I hope to avoid in the future!)

rick tornello wrote:So do you want us to re-register or those of us with other than those email accounts mentioned, are okay?

RT

It would be really nice to be able to just mass-delete all @gmail.whatever and @yahoo.whatever and @hotmail.whatever accounts, because there are so many of them... Most legitimate members use accounts with particular ISP domain names, but some do use gmail, yahoo mail, or hotmail accounts. If no legit members register in the future using those generic services, I'll be able to (say) delete all gmail accounts registered after G-Day (arbitrary cut-off date)...

To give you some idea of how many junk registrations we get, in a former mass-delete frenzy, I had the member list down to about 1300 members. It has more than doubled in size, in spite of frequent pruning based on criteria other than domain names in the e-mail addresses...

RHFay wrote:

avoid using gmail, hotmail, or yahoo mail if possible,

That seems like it's asking for a lot. I pretty much use Gmail as my primary e-mail, with Yahoo mail as my back-up and primary on some things. I COULD have access to a RoadRunner e-mail, but when I had one before, I lost it when I changed my place of residence, because they closed the old account and opened a new one.

I wouldn't trust an e-mail carrier I've never heard of. Who else is there? AOL?

Gee, Richard, if I had known that it might inconvenience YOU, I would never have dared to suggest it. I guess you are saying I should just let the spam flood the Forum. Or are you suggesting that it isn't a lot to ask for me to spend many hours a month trying to stem the tide? If so, please feel free to volunteer your services to do such a little thing.

RHFay wrote:Now I am going to be difficult. I'm in just the right (or wrong?) mood.

You don't like the e-mail I use, delete me. Problem solved.

I don't need Aphelion. It's certainly not important enough to me to go setting up another e-mail just so I can remain a member of the forums.

It was nice while it lasted, but I don't think I will be sending anymore material to Aphelion. Not if being a member of its associated forum is going to be so much trouble.

Your graciousness is exceeded only by your modesty. I wonder if you will be missed?

Robert,

I have to say that while personally I do not particularly care for Mr. Fay and wouldn't miss him, he may actually have something of a point here.

According to Wikipedia, there are 310 million yahoo mail users, of which I am one, and 260 million gmail users. Who knows how many of them may be fake. These two services may indeed be used extensively by spammers. Their security protocols may indeed be making your life difficult, and it is unfortunate, because Robert, you are a good fellow and don't deserve the headache.

Since I only use a work email and my yahoo account, I don't personally relish having to find another email account to participate, but I probably would. I think I would. Anyway, I don't know to pretend to know what is the best option, and I already do delete and ban all the spam my Moderator status and time away from work allows me to.

However, arbitrarily prohibiting 570 million people from having the chance at commenting on stories (or to submit a flash piece) doesn't seem necessarily like the best way to go.

Aren't there any upgrades to the board software that could make your life easier so you could spend more time as shorts editor and less defending against the horde?

kailhofer wrote: However, arbitrarily prohibiting 570 million people from having the chance at commenting on stories (or to submit a flash piece) doesn't seem necessarily like the best way to go.

Aren't there any upgrades to the board software that could make your life easier so you could spend more time as shorts editor and less defending against the horde?

I can't help but agree; some board upgrade should be sought as a solution. I can anticipate a problem with that, though: an extra cost for the upgrade. I don't know who's paying to keep this site up now, but I'm pretty sure it isn't free, and a few extra bucks may make the difference between keeping it on line or letting it expire (or continue, plague-ridden, as is). I may be wrong about all of that; I won't get nosy and ask.

A cautionary note to Mr. Fay: your posts on this public forum could likely become part of your resume.

If Mr. Fay read my request more carefully, he would have realized that I DID NOT ASK EXISTING USERS TO CHANGE THEIR E-MAIL ADDRESSES. However, he was too busy touting his great importance (the vast majority of his posts to the Forum are to the "Aphelion Authors Plug Their Work" topic; most of the rest are responses to comments on his work) to take so much trouble. There WERE over 800 registered members with gmail accounts who had never made posts, probably because I HAVE tried to block posting by IP address (which doesn't always work), by e-mail domain, by keywords in userid and e-mail addresses, and by every other trick I can think of. There WERE over 200 yahoo addresses, and close to 200 hotmail addresses. I have purged almost all of those that have never posted, but more continue to be added on an hourly basis.

I am sorely tempted to quit doing administrative duties, and maybe to quit being the defacto production editor and short story editor as well. I have already done this job for as long or longer than Cary Semar; during the last few years, I haven't had the time and energy to spare to do any writing of my own.

Any volunteers?

Okay, here's an idea that may have already been tried . . .

As I understand the process, the spammers get paid by click-through, which means they have to grab someone's attention and get them to click a link before they can think it over too closely. Thus, the spam posts all have active links. Their business depends on these.

If you could install a filter that would block any new post containing an active link, then that would at least stop their posts from showing up on the forum. It wouldn't stop their membership, but at least it would lessen the amount of Robert's chore by some amount. The filter would have to be tailored to accept the little banner ads for the Aphelion anthology, of course. And, if it went no further than that, anybody wanting to post a link would simply have to break it in the text before hitting "submit." A more sophisticated filter would use a 'white list' of trusted members, who could post unbroken links. And, perhaps a new member would have to post X number of times without any links before being added to the 'white list,' and be emailed a warning otherwise, and perhaps even automatically banned after X number of infractions. Automate the process as much as possible.

Would this work?

P.S. As much as I am loathe to volunteer for anything, I don't have a job, or much of a life, and I visit this site probably a dozen times a day or more, and flag spam posts as soon as I see them. Now, if I just had a 'delete' button that I could use, I very cheerfully would. PM me if this sounds like an offer.

P.P.S. Dan -- you -- and the rest of the staff, are heroes to us all for keeping this site going.

I have now nuked pretty much all the @gmail, @yahoo mail, @hotmail, and @aol mail accounts with 0 posts. This brought the member list down from 2700+ to less than 1000. I'm not sure if there are any other e-mail providers with really significant numbers of spammers -- short of looking at them one at a time, it's hard to tell. I routinely nuke accounts registered with .ru, .pl, @ymail, and @e-mail addresses because I have yet to see anyone who meets these criteria who has made a real, on-topic post. (I also nuke most @mail... address users, unless they at least look like real people -- i.e., username or e-mail address not a long string of gibberish, and not including common spam words like erectile dysfunction drug names, 'ugg', 'nike', 'vuitton', etc.).

The current version of the board does not allow searches by IP address (and I'm not sure the latest available version does, either), and bans by partial addresses (e-mail or IP) do not seem to work reliably...

Unfortunately, on one of my purge runs, I deleted the account set up by one of the December / January authors, Rachel Eliason (for which I have apologized via direct e-mail)... this being one of the reasons for asking NEW members to avoid using the popular free-to-register worldwide services IF POSSIBLE.

There have been some pretty disgusting pornographic messages posted (with lots o' pictures) and many with links to porn including child pornography. Most spam is more innocuous, but distracts from and maybe deters some real members from posting. Stomping on this stuff is like killing cockroaches -- it never ends, and you can't turn your back for more than a minute lest...

Mark Edgemon wrote:

IcegedGermFem wrote:Quote removed by irony-impaired Mod

My...if this isn't a slap in the face, posting spam in this topic, I don't know what it!

I got the last laugh, though . . .

I'll keep the old title of 'Master Critic' -- but look carefully at my sig line . . . I'm putting in a mark on the bottom line for every spammer I take down.

I really do appreciate the honor.

Mark Edgemon wrote:

Lester Curtis wrote:. . . I'm putting in a mark on the bottom line for every spammer I take down.

I really do appreciate the honor.

Lester, I congratulate you for your magnificent success of shooting down spammers. It is almost like the days before they began crawling about the site.

Your work, added to the other editors who also zap them has made the difference!

I thank you warmly from a person who appreciates our site clean again.

Mark

Thanks again. I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

At least one spammer is gonna think we've got a robot on patrol . . . I happened to find his posts just a minute or so after he'd made them . . . WHAP!! Here and gone again under three minutes!

Just had to share that with you; it gave me a grin.

Lester Curtis wrote:At least one spammer is gonna think we've got a robot on patrol . . . I happened to find his posts just a minute or so after he'd made them . . . WHAP!! Here and gone again under three minutes!

Just had to share that with you; it gave me a grin.

I've had at least one case where the spammer was online and posting more messages (one of those lovely people or things that posts 20 or 30 or ... 80-something messages in one session) when I banned and deleted him / her / it...

Ah, that has to be even better!

I almost felt bad . . . just had to kick one with the screen name of RogerWilko . . . oh, well . . . over and out!

Wormtongue wrote:It's been knife work on the walls!

I'm not exactly sure what that's supposed to mean, but it does sound fitting coming from the poetry editor.

I've gone to taking them out by the dozens at a stroke now, instead of cutting their nasty little heads off one at a time. You;ll notice I got rid of the score count number in my sig line . . . it would have been too hard to keep up lately, especially in Roman numerals.

Just when things were looking pretty calm . . . we got majorly invaded this morning. I'm still cleaning up. Assholes.

Wormtongue wrote:Egad. Just deleted 137 adverts for ugg boots. Pant, pant.

You have pants; they got the boot.

You don't delete those one at a time, I hope -- ?

Lester Curtis wrote:

Wormtongue wrote:Egad. Just deleted 137 adverts for ugg boots. Pant, pant.

You have pants; they got the boot.

You don't delete those one at a time, I hope -- ?

I'm sure he did. "Editors" in green can't wipe them like those of us in red.

Well, he can NOW!

Wormtongue wrote:Oh, the POWER! THE POWER!!!!!!!!

Be careful with that thing; you could hurt something . . .

I'm getting a little weary of kicking these Russian jerks, myself. In the beginning, it was fun, but there's just too much.

AND, there's NO NEED for it.

Our board software is out of date, and the spam-bot defenses we use (captchas) are known to be useless.

I have appealed to doc (our webmaven) to update the board and get some working filters in place. Maybe he'll move that chore up on his to-do list if others of you also ask him nicely.

Say 'Please.'

I could envision a solution that would work, but that NO ONE would want to implement: anybody sending any email to anyone has to pay to do so; maybe something trivial, like one cent per email. Spam would cease to exist practically overnight. Of course, the fee would have to be enforced, which might be problematic in itself.

I have looked at the home website for this board software, and newer filters are available that do work. Still, I think Mark had the best idea -- and the simplest to implement -- simply require admin account activation for all new member applications. It's literally one button-push away. And I think that the majority of spammers would not bother if they saw that. My only question would be: Who do those applications get routed to? My guess is upper staff, who have too much on their plates already.

Meanwhile, I had a look at the previous thread dealing with board software update, back in Feb 2011 -- ironically,I had to go there to kick a spammer. Then I reviewed the thread, and saw that it's not going to be neat or easy (at least, it sure wasn't then). So I know why Doc is not in a hurry to have to jump into the project, which involved several staffers to iron out the bugs.

We can't expect Lester to do the heavy lifting month after month, when the answer is so easy and right in front of us.

Thanks, Mark, but I'm nowhere near alone in this -- Robert is a heavy hitter, for sure, and some of the others get in a lick now and then.

I'd really like to see Doc do the update in any case. For one thing, I'm not sure how much of this board is working as it should, but I know for a fact that it ain't 100%. Example: we get handfuls of spam daily from mail.ru, and we've got that listed in the banned email addresses. It shouldn't be getting here. So, that filter doesn't work. There's no way (for me, at least) to know that we might push the button for admin account activation and find that the spammers just stroll right past that, too. So, we need the update for ALL its security.

Just post a message at the sign up place that the administrator would review and accept non spam membership sign ups a couple of times a week.

Hell, I'd just hit it every time I come on, same as I do if I see any spam. And I visit this site maybe six times a day or more. I don't like letting stuff pile up. Also, some of the contributing writers don't post anything until someone comments on their story, so I wouldn't want to delay them.

I think it'd probably be best to go by steps: do the update first and get good filters in place, and see how that affects the flow of crap. If too much is still getting through, then go to admin activation.

I have collected hundreds of spam e-mails by copying them from this site and pasting them on notepads for the purpose of writing spam comedy as I have the time. But even so, I'd love to run out and have no more coming in to parody.

I've thought about that. You could get back to your poetry practice!

Wormtongue wrote:Doc, may I please add my name to those humbly requesting an update to the board software? I think I have banned and deleted the posts of over 20 spammers this evening.

Thanks for your help . . . the mess just seems worse than usual lately because Robert's been on holiday for a while. He usually cuts a broad swath, mostly during the hours when I'm asleep. Hope to see him back in action soon.

!!! NEW COUNTERMEASURE IMPLEMENTED !!!

As of a few minutes ago, I implemented (with Dan's permission) a new Q&A Captcha which, if it works properly, should stop the bots. Time will tell.

I am very nervous right now. And, I suppose I should run a test on it. Back soon.

Tested, tweaked, and working!

Mark Edgemon wrote:

Lester Curtis wrote:!!! NEW COUNTERMEASURE IMPLEMENTED !!!

As of a few minutes ago, I implemented (with Dan's permission) a new Q&A Captcha which, if it works properly, should stop the bots. Time will tell.

I am very nervous right now. And, I suppose I should run a test on it. Back soon.

I am appreciative of your ingenuity and your never giving up.

Thanks, Mark, but my ingenuity had nearly zilch to do with this. I just searched for what could be done, out of desperation. What surprises me is that no one did this before -- it took me about twenty minutes, and I'd never done such a thing previously.

I do believe it's working, too -- about an hour now, and not a single inactive user registered. It's common to see those pop up about every few minutes.

What am I gonna do with all this free time now? Guess I'll work on my story.