Starting to get tired of all the spam on the forums !!!!

Question

Starting to get tired of all the spam on the forums !!!!

Jayanth_Kurup

SSC-Insane

Points: 22967
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October 25, 2015 at 8:59 am

#304452

How about preventing a post if its posted by a newbie , has a link and the body contains less than 100 chars in it?
Simple instead of trigger might do it 🙂
Or at least a capthca ? before submitting.
Jayanth Kurup[/url]

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 10 (of 10 total)

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003851 More actions · Answer 1

I agree. Since most spam posts are by new users, it would be good to also make the new user signup have an email verification process where they must respond correctly to an email they get, as many other sites do.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Sean Lange SSC Guru Points: 286573 More actions · Answer 2

Jeff Moden (10/25/2015)
I agree. Since most spam posts are by new users, it would be good to also make the new user signup have an email verification process where they must respond correctly to an email they get, as many other sites do.

This site does that. I tried it out myself a few weeks ago when I posted my ranting about the copious amounts of spam. It has so soured my view of this site that I don't come around very much anymore. Sad really, this site has provided so much to me over the years and now the amount of spam is equal to or greater than the number of actual requests for help. Something must be done or more and more of the regulars are going to leave to avoid the spam.

_______________________________________________________________

Need help? Help us help you.

Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.

Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.

Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/

Kristen-173977 SSCrazy Eights Points: 8687 More actions · Answer 3

I've mentioned before, but my view is that more modern forum software is required - not just for SPAM but many things that would bring benefit to regular posters and newbies too.

For example: <A HREF> links in modern forum software include a

rel=”nofollow”

attribute. This allows Google et al to ignore the link, and thus the value to the spammer is low. Because this site doesn't have that attribute in the links it presumably encourages more spammers to have-a-go.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734418 More actions · Answer 4

We have implemented a spam engine, which catches lots of spam. However some slips through, and some of the users that are monitoring forums get notified.

I'm not sure a trigger works well as text parsing isn't a good use of t-SQL, and it's hard to determine what is spam. We get a surprising number of items that don't have links in them.

I will ask if we can limit posts by new users that have links. However many of the spammers are not posting here directly as you and I have. They are using some bug that lets them submit many posts, even as unapproved users.

Sean Lange SSC Guru Points: 286573 More actions · Answer 5

However many of the spammers are not posting here directly as you and I have. They are using some bug that lets them submit many posts, even as unapproved users.

Sheesh that doesn't sound good. :w00t:

_______________________________________________________________

Need help? Help us help you.

Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.

Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.

Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003851 More actions · Answer 6

Steve Jones - SSC Editor (10/26/2015)
They are using some bug that lets them submit many posts, even as unapproved users.

[font="Arial Black"]PLEASE [/font]tell me that the bug is in the forum software and not SQL Server. :pinch:

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Jayanth_Kurup SSC-Insane Points: 22967 More actions · Answer 7

just noticed most spam is in SQL Server 2008 - General forum , might help isolate the problem.

Jayanth Kurup[/url]

Sean Lange SSC Guru Points: 286573 More actions · Answer 8

Jayanth_Kurup (10/26/2015)
just noticed most spam is in SQL Server 2008 - General forum , might help isolate the problem.

Seems to be moving around. A week or two ago it was almost exclusively in the Data Corruption threads. The irony was lost on me there for sure. 😉

_______________________________________________________________

Need help? Help us help you.

Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.

Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.

Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/

Ant-Green SSC Guru Points: 113445 More actions · Answer 9

One of the places I used to work used Telligent Community for its forums, they had the same problem where people could bypass the unauthorized user aspect of the user account to post data to the forums.

Looking at the SQL Monitor demo, looks like SSC uses Telligent also, DB name is similar and also recognize some of the objects in the expensive queries. Got around the unapproved user by adding a re-captcha to the user creation screen, but that didnt stop the spam it just slowed it down as most spam then came from users creating accounts manually and approving them, then using the details of the account in the spam bot

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734418 More actions · Answer 10

Jeff Moden (10/26/2015)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (10/26/2015)
They are using some bug that lets them submit many posts, even as unapproved users.
[font="Arial Black"]PLEASE [/font]tell me that the bug is in the forum software and not SQL Server. :pinch:

Forum software. no access to the SQL Server except through the ASPX code.