Spam

[Vampyr]

Here on BBO we don't usually have too much trouble with spam, but the current situation has got me thinking. Maybe new posters could be required to fill out a simple quiz to verify that a) they are real ans b) that they know at least a little about bridge.

 

I imagine that someone here has a program that sends tens of thousands of emails back to the spammer. Is this usually a good idea?

[barmar]

Here on BBO we don't usually have too much trouble with spam, but the current situation has got me thinking. Maybe new posters could be required to fill out a simple quiz to verify that a) they are real ans b) that they know at least a little about bridge.

Or maybe require that they've actually played on BBO. Several of the handles used for this morning's spam flood are not even BBO usernames.

I imagine that someone here has a program that sends tens of thousands of emails back to the spammer. Is this usually a good idea?

Spammers typically use forged return addresses, so flooding them with bounce messages is rarely helpful.

[hrothgar]

 

I imagine that someone here has a program that sends tens of thousands of emails back to the spammer. Is this usually a good idea?

 

It is illegal.

[1eyedjack]

I thought that I recalled some comment from a long time back that new posters to the forums were required to register a user ID with BBO and then use that ID for the forum. Those with old handles were exempt, but then there was no real need to police them. I guess that I got this wrong.

[1eyedjack]

I thought that I recalled some comment from a long time back that new posters to the forums were required to register a user ID with BBO and then use that ID for the forum. Those with old handles were exempt, but then there was no real need to police them. I guess that I got this wrong.

[barmar]

I was about to delete one of your duplicate posts, but I decided to leave it around for the irony :)

[jandrew]

Who is irony?

Does she need one all for herself, can't she copy the first one.

[barmar]

I was wrong, they're all BBO usernames. I mistyped some of them when I was looking them up.

 

But some of them don't have any logins, the others only logged in once, and they haven't played any hands.

[1eyedjack]

yup . playing with new windows 8 tablet which seems to like double posting

[inquiry]

You have to have a BBO alias to post here. There is nothing to stop people from creating an alias just to post. It seems like a lot of work for no gain as the spam is deleted as soon as someone flags it and an administrator has time to check their email... and then log in and delete it. We also ban that alias from posting again and try some other tricks that work sometime, not others.

 

You guys keep up the good work... just flag spam with the repot button. All you have to say is SPAM in the text. Thanks.

 

 

 

[Vampyr]

Or maybe require that they've actually played on BBO.

 

Well, I don't know. I actually played a few robot races or some such several years ago, but I could easily have not done that and never played on BBO. I am sure that there are a fair few posters who have never played on BBO.

 

yup . playing with new windows 8 tablet which seems to like double posting

 

Sometimes my mini iPad doesn't content itself with just the double post...

[1eyedjack]

To some extent we may be limited in our options by the version of InVision software that drives the forum. That said, one solution might be to require that any post must contain a minimum number of key words (the minimum number being a function of the total post size), typical key words being:

 

contract, bridge, bid, overbid, underbid, overcall, overcaller, advancer, advance, pass, double, redouble, spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs, no-trumps, no trumps, notrumps, N, NT, S, H, D, C, jacoby, transfer, stayman, staymen (ha! Ha!), lebensohl, blackwood, RKCB, byzantine, takeout, take-out, penalty, consultative, constructive, forcing, non-forcing, nonforcing, game, partscore, partial, invitation, invitational, signout, lebensohl, rubensohl, splinter, defence, defense, declare, declarer, dummy, lead, follow, revoke, discard, signal, honour

 

You get the drift.

 

I am willing to bet that yer average spam post contains a remarkably low proportion of hit rate measured against these key words while the hit rate for a genuine post would be high, with a wide gulf in between. There need be no publicity regarding what qualifies. The vast majority of posters would never know that the filtration exists, and their posts would be published without any hitch. But the spammers would be autoblocked without ever realising the cause.

 

Indeed I would go further: The spammer's post would be posted to the forum but only visible to the spammer. They would never know that the message never got through.

 

There is no way that this could apply to the Water Cooler, and you would obviously require a different database of key words in foreign language subforums (just curious but do they ever get hit by spam?)

 

Any posts that were blocked or filtered as a result of this rule would be flagged up for forum moderators to review. If it is spam the moderator would block the user. If it turns out to be a false positive, the moderator could release it for general consumption. But if the key words (and threshold) are intelligently set, it would not result in significantly more work for the moderators (and probably a lot less).

[1eyedjack]

I was about to delete one of your duplicate posts, but I decided to leave it around for the irony :)

 

We had a fire station burn down here in the UK a few weeks ago, at Downham market. It is speculated that someone left the irony on.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rain]

I'm thinking...we'll set it so a poster need to have some min. BBO logins to post. New BBO names require email confirmation, and then logging in/out require some effort.

 

I think this is possible.

[Bbradley62]

Can't a new BBO member have some legitimate questions after just one BBO login? But I do think verifying email is a good thing.

[1eyedjack]

Can't a new BBO member have some legitimate questions after just one BBO login?

 

Maybe the Support subforum should have more relaxed criteria

[diana_eva]

Can't a new BBO member have some legitimate questions after just one BBO login? But I do think verifying email is a good thing.

 

Both me and Aurora knew absolutely nothing about bridge when we first logged on BBO. I know a few Chinese players who also learned from scratch, playing with robots. I think we wd have failed a quiz miserably :) Some people really learn from zero on BBO, and I think that is more valuable than keeping the occasional spammers out of the forums. A confidential minimum number of logins seems more sensible than quizzing newcomers IMO.

[Rain]

Can't a new BBO member have some legitimate questions after just one BBO login? But I do think verifying email is a good thing.

 

Anything is possible, but I doubt it. I'll make sure it doesn't take too long to get post rights.

[Vampyr]

 

Spammers typically use forged return addresses, so flooding them with bounce messages is rarely helpful.

 

Forgive me for being dense, but then how do people who want their voodoo magic or whatever it was get in touch?

[lycier]

Both me and Aurora knew absolutely nothing about bridge when we first logged on BBO. I know a few Chinese players who also learned from scratch, playing with robots. I think we wd have failed a quiz miserably :) Some people really learn from zero on BBO, and I think that is more valuable than keeping the occasional spammers out of the forums. A confidential minimum number of logins seems more sensible than quizzing newcomers IMO.

 

yes,yes,I totally agree with you.

[Antrax]

I have a lot of experience with this type of issues, having ran other forums in the past.

The best solution was to use a simple quiz similar to what Vampyr was suggesting. How many different suits exist or how many cards in the deck, trivial for a human but require customized bot scripts to defeat which is normally not worth the operator's time. I just asked both communities to come up with questions, it's a lot less annoying for humans than captchas are and more difficult for bots to defeat due to reliance on specialized knowledge (in this case, Bridge).

 

Barring that, just de-standardizing your registration form often helps. Give all the form fields random names and move them around a bit, and if you want to feel extra safe you can change the prompts tot - instead of "Username" use "Nickname", etc. That again requires customization of the bot to BBO specifically, which goes against what bot operators aim for. It takes them a while to notice the bots fail on BBO and then when they adjust you can shift everything around again.

The down side to the second approach is that it can screw Google Analytics, which also relies on form fields having some logical names.

[barmar]

Barring that, just de-standardizing your registration form often helps. Give all the form fields random names and move them around a bit, and if you want to feel extra safe you can change the prompts tot - instead of "Username" use "Nickname", etc. That again requires customization of the bot to BBO specifically, which goes against what bot operators aim for. It takes them a while to notice the bots fail on BBO and then when they adjust you can shift everything around again.

The down side to the second approach is that it can screw Google Analytics, which also relies on form fields having some logical names.

The BBO registration form is a Flash app, not a normal web page. Are you talking about the forum login page? We're limited in how we can customize that, since it's part of the inVision app.

[hrothgar]

The BBO registration form is a Flash app, not a normal web page. Are you talking about the forum login page? We're limited in how we can customize that, since it's part of the inVision app.

 

I would favor a requirement that posters need to play a certain number of boards over the last 6 months

Nothing that large (say, 10 or so would suffice)

 

I'd like to see this requirement applied to existing accounts as well as new ones.

[helene_t]

There are a few very good posters who almost never play online. I wouldn't like losing them. And there are probably people who for w/e reason use a different login when posting than when playing. Finally, there could be newcommers who want to ask a few questions before they start playing.

 

A quota of one post per 12 hours for the first 48 hours for new posters might be better. But I am not sure if it is worth the hassle.

[gwnn]

There are a few very good posters who almost never play online. I wouldn't like losing them. And there are probably people who for w/e reason use a different login when posting than when playing. Finally, there could be newcommers who want to ask a few questions before they start playing.

 

A quota of one post per 12 hours for the first 48 hours for new posters might be better. But I am not sure if it is worth the hassle.

A quota on creating threads could do the trick, too (of course, that would mean that the spam could move to replies but maybe not quite so annoying - replies are somehow easier to ignore than a bunch of new threads).