I may give it up.

[galactus]

I just wanted to let the 'regulars' know that I may give it up on this site.

I am sick and tired of 'disapproving' these idiotic posts: funny pictures, nonsensical languages, porn, etc.

Other sites I visit do not have this problem. I do not know what they do that this site doesn't, but it has gotten very old.

I could just stop disapproving/deleting them, but I hate seeing them gather up if not eliminated.

It has gotten out of hand. Who these morons are that continue these unrelenting posts escapes me. I do not see the point.

 

[Deleted member 4993]

Wait ... wait ... can't do that Cody!

Come on who else is going to post those animated graphs???!!!

Without you this site will loose the pizzaz ... not counting the brain-power.

Don't let distractors chase you out. I take solace in the fact that these guys (the spammers) are foiled at the begining - may be not the begining of the begining!!!

You have to admit that the situation is better than it used to be. Now atleast we can disapprove those guys ad-hoc.

Imagine the load we have to bear if you are gone!!! Have mercy on us.....

 

[JeffM]

Please do not do that.

I have only been visiting for a short while, but you are one of the best here: patient, steering students toward an answer rather than just giving them one, concise without being inscrutable. Your leaving will really damage the site.

I can imagine that a whole bunch of utter junk must be waded through by the VOLUNTEER admins. Discussing how to reduce that pile will be better for your sanity and far better for this site than just giving up. I am sure that there have been many such discussions in the past, but maybe it is time for another one.

 

[galactus]

Thanks for thee support, fellas. I was just feeling bad yesterday and got disgusted at the never ending barrage of crap.

Other sites do not appear to have this problem. I may try and find out what can be done to keep them from reaching the site in the first place.

I am addicted to the site and have been a member for nigh on 6 years. But, I am fed up with 'disapproving' and deleting 'funny pictures'. What is that all about?. They do not advertise anything. Why would someone continually post pictures for no apparent reason?.

 

[Deleted member 4993]

Thanks for thee support, fellas. I was just feeling bad yesterday and got disgusted at the never ending barrage of crap.

Other sites do not appear to have this problem. I may try and find out what can be done to keep them from reaching the site in the first place.

I am addicted to the site and have been a member for nigh on 6 years. But, I am fed up with 'disapproving' and deleting 'funny pictures'. What is that all about?. They do not advertise anything. Why would someone continually post pictures for no apparent reason?.

In all those pictures - there is a web-site selling porn. You just did not look hard enough!!!

 

[JeffM]

But, I am fed up with 'disapproving' and deleting 'funny pictures'. What is that all about?. They do not advertise anything. Why would someone continually post pictures for no apparent reason?.

Has there ever been any discussion of requiring new registrants to give an email address, send a code to it, and require the new registrant to enter the code before posting? Lots of sites do that, presumably to reduce spamming. It is not onerous for the legitimate applicant.

 

[galactus]

That is what many sites so. I do not know if this one requires it or not. It should.

 

[JeffM]

I registered less than 2 months ago. I do not remember going through that process.

I am reasonably confident that a skilled spammer can circumvent the process, but I doubt this site generates enough traffic to warrant the effort. If that supposition is wrong, there is a fairly common additional step available.

As an educational site that attracts underage kids, we may be able to get help with preventing porn sites from spamming here. The latest spammer, however, was a purely commercial site that appears to operate from China. We are definitely on our own with that kind of site.

 

[Mrspi]

Thanks for thee support, fellas. I was just feeling bad yesterday and got disgusted at the never ending barrage of crap.

Other sites do not appear to have this problem. I may try and find out what can be done to keep them from reaching the site in the first place.

I am addicted to the site and have been a member for nigh on 6 years. But, I am fed up with 'disapproving' and deleting 'funny pictures'. What is that all about?. They do not advertise anything. Why would someone continually post pictures for no apparent reason?.

Oh yes, other boards DO have this problem...seems that there is an entire "cottage industry" (especially in some Eastern European countries) devoted to spamming boards with links to just about every undesirable thing you can think of.

I'm one of several board moderators for another "homework help" board and all of us spend an inordinate amount of time removing that spam. We're all volunteers there, too....as we've increased the number of moderators, we've been able to remove MOST of the junk fairly promptly. But we have not found a way to eliminate it all!

Many thanks to the moderators here for their hard work in keeping Freemath relatively free of board junk. It's a neverending (and generally thankless!) job...just want to let you know that we DO appreciate it.

Please don't let the spammers drive you away, Galactus! We need you!

 

[galactus]

I am not going to quit. I was just whining because I was feeling rough. I am just fed up with all this unrelenting spam. It is insane how many out there devout their time to aggravating other people. China, Russia, and Eastern European countries must have a lot of time on their hands.
If they spent as much time doing something good as they do with this nonsense the world would be a better place.

Do these idiots really thing they're going to have someone buy their porn from this site if they just pester us enough?.

It's so crazy. It's a shame there isn't something that can be done, but apparently there isn't.

 

[JeffM]

It may be a pain, but asking people to register by sending a code back that was sent to the registrant's alleged email address will ensure that we have a valid email address that belongs to the registrant, and we can have a blacklist of email addresses that are associated with spammers. (I know; they will just open up new email accounts, but, the more difficult we make it for them to send us junk, the more they will pick on other sites rather than us.)

 

[Ted]

I'm a little late to this thread, but there are a number of security measures I have implemented. Frankly, I'm not sure what else to do. Users must type a code displayed in an image when they register, and then click a link in an email they receive. That "proves" that they are human and have a valid email address. Requiring new users to have posts approved does prevent posts from showing up for everyone to see, but of course it requires someone to come around and approve or disapprove them. They bulk of the SPAM comes from foreign IPs and as far as I know they are essentially sweatshop type operations -- people get paid a penny for every spam message they post etc. This makes it awfully hard to separate the spammers from the real posters, because both are human. I have been trying to block big ranges of foreign IPs (primarily the eastern european and asian TLDs), but there's no good way to do that other than after the fact.

Suggestions?

 

[galactus]

I recently saw an interesting thing when I registered on a site. Upon registering, one had to type in the answer to a very easy math problem. In this case, 2+2=?. Then, one must type in 4.
Apparently, this may help as I do not see much spam on this site.

 

[mmm4444bot]

Requiring new users to have posts approved does prevent posts from showing up

This is not always true.

Here is a SPAM that posted today from new user sdfawefd99 (joined May 17, 2011).

Furthermore, the Moderator Control Panel logs show several posted SPAMs being deleted after the fact.

[attachment=0:2qgz2e7w]SPAM.JPG[/attachment:2qgz2e7w]