Archived Forum

There is a way, click edit then report to Mollom at the bottom of the post. Or just delete the post. 

Ummmm, there is no "edit" button unless you are an administrator on the site. Regular users can't edit or delete other's posts. Those of you with administrator's permissions here might do well to create yourself a non-administrative user account so you can see what we see.

And, yes, the existence and lack of spam clean-up on this site is a bit of a turn-off. Perhaps this topic thread should become the report-a-spammer system, posting a link to the offending text. Someone with Admin permissions could subscribe to it and go 'round with a mop and bucket once or twice a day?

Site Volunteer Moderators

I agree Sharkey.

A tier of volunteer moderators (as other sites do)  would enable spam to be removed swiftly, whilst not imposing a further drain on Glyn & Trystan's time.

I'm not suggesting that posts should be moderated 'before' being posted, as that may frustrate spontaneity, but half a dozen or so members with some history on this site and who have made a positive contribution, could take on that role, IF they were trusted with additional admin rights. 

I for one would volunteer to contribute, as I have taken far more from this site than I have given...

You have both been given editor permissions. You should now have the option to delete posts and report them to Mollom. Let me know if you can't. 

Thanks a lot of the offer, that would be much appreciated. It's very frustrating that any SPAM gets through at all, there are quite a number of spam preventing measures installed. 

oh, er...

I guess the next order of business is to sit down and invent a descriptive word describing "Identify a need and get yourself volunteered", assuming that such doesn't exist already.

It might be useful to know a bit about how Mollom works. If I click the "report" button on one of my own posts, is Mollom going to "learn" that I'm a spammer and lock me out? Maybe point me (us) at some real spam so we can get some target practice before going out on the battlefield?

This is how it works, to be honest I don't know a lot about how it works other than before we installed it spam was very bad, and now we hardly get any: http://drupal.org/project/mollom.

I don't think there is any spam on the site to point you towards. We only seem to get a couple of spam posts a week, we try and report them to mollom pretty soon. 

Wops that last post ^ was me, I forgot I was still logged in with my non-admin account from last night! 

What mechanism is in place for the average user to report SPAM?

Not sure what software this forum is based on but most have an option to report SPAM to an administrator/moderator. Can we have something here?

It's not realistic to expect just a few moderators to find all the SPAM, little as there is.

I think what I was proposing was that a link to the offending post be reported in this topic thread, which would be our notification. As for keeping this topic address handy, that would be up to Glyn to decide. Don't know if a link on posts or a sticky is possible.

The software here is Drupal 6, which has a "mostly broken" forum module, in my opinion. It's a great CMS, but mediocre for social media

Isn't the 'Flag' module a neater solution. See http://drupal.org/project/flag &  http://drupal.org/documentation/modules/flag

This module adds a configurable link on posts, which can be picked up by Admins for moderation and referral to Mollom.
I haven't tried it because I don't have a Drupal site, but at first glance it appears to fit the bill.

Paul

PS. Tried Mollom with some self-generated spam in this thread, and it worked great (used a disposable email address). The  next time I tried to post, I had to complete a Captcha first.

Thanks for the link Paul. The flag module sounds quite good. We'll keep it in mind. At the moment we don't get much spam. We'll keep an eye on the problem and consider more drastic measures if it becomes more of an issue. 

Just killed my first spam post, a come-on for crossword puzzles, apparently.

Next question:

What are we going to do about confirmed spam poster's user accounts? Obviously, this person/robot registered to post their trash, leaving their account active is an invitation to spam again, as well as a pollutant in the site's user pool.

For the record, and in case Glyn wants to go delete them, here's their profile: http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/user/950

Boom! Good work. I've blocked that account. I'm not sure what the best thing to do is, there should be a way a user account can be flagged up as being a source of spam, that flag module might be able to do that.

Well, the quick-and-dirty method would be to post the link to their user account in this thread (or in a PM to an admin), for further action.

Also remember when on spam patrol, click the spam poster's "Track" link on their profile, which will show any additional postings that they've made and perhaps lead to more litter to clean up.

When I was still hosting a forum on my site, I went though the member list each month and deleted any user accounts that had been registered for two months or more and which as not posted at least one valid message. While it may have locked out some interested lurkers who re-registered (some did, but never caused trouble), it also prevented registered bots and spammers from accessing members-only features. I did (and still do) have some concerns about non-posting registered users having access to PM features, which could be used for nefarious purposes in complete private. Imagine getting a friendly call from the authorities asking for complete site records because some lawbreaker used your site to relay illegal information (kiddie porn, terrorist communications, bank robbery plans, etc). Brrrr....

I've created a user group called 'moderators'. Moderators will have permission to delete posts, report them to Mollom and delete/block user accounts which are responsible. To become a moderator users will have to be known on the site and be trusted.

So Far I've made Mr Sharky, Pauldreed and Geoffs moderators. Please let me know if the privileges I mention work for you and that there are no unintended side effects! 

Thanks a lot for your help

Thanks for the added power!

I shall keep an eye out for spam while I work out how to connect sensors to my power feed :-(

I hope you don't find any spams lurking inside your circuit boxes!

If it caused a flashover, you'd have instant fried spam. Yummy yummy!