New user creation suspended

[Z98]

Due to the volume of spam we are getting, creation of new user accounts on the site is suspended. If things work well, the new site will be up and running soon and we can switch over. If not, we will determine when it is appropriate to reopen account creation.

[EmuandCo]

i welcome this step. had to delete 115 posts on friday morning due to spam nature...

[SomeGuy]

Well, good thing I signed up in advance (says user #70)

Perhaps ReactOS should do like some torrent trackers and only have brief periods where registration is open. It would make ReactOS look extra 1337! (BTW, I'm kidding )

It's too bad you can't just reach through the internet and slap these spammers silly.

[PurpleGurl]

Well, good thing I signed up in advance (says user #70)

Perhaps ReactOS should do like some torrent trackers and only have brief periods where registration is open. It would make ReactOS look extra 1337! (BTW, I'm kidding )

It's too bad you can't just reach through the internet and slap these spammers silly.

Remember the other week when the spammers were "dogging" us? That was gross, and not exactly legal images they were peddling. At least it wasn't children.

I hate that they have to lock down registration, but the spam was certainly a problem. I was reporting so much of it, and I assume there was more I didn't see. Of all the forums to spam, I don't know why we were chosen. I imagine some have been ticked off over the years over petty things, but not mad enough to enlist spammers. So I guess it is all about opportunity. What I've never understand about spam is the amount of products they spam which have nothing to do with those they target. Things like male enhancement pill ads being sent to women, or bust enhancement pill ads sent to men. Or weight loss ads being sent to those actively trying to gain weight. I know, they don't know anything about the users but their addresses.

[EmuandCo]

well, these are bad coded automatic spambots then. i do wonder more about the way they manage to pass all our hurdles...

[SomeGuy]

What I've never understand about spam is the amount of products they spam which have nothing to do with those they target.

Don't underestimate the possibility that someone might just be trying to get the site shut down.

BTW, I noticed (and reported) a couple of spam posts since the registration was closed. Something may need to be done about existing inactive accounts, if it is not being done already. Many sites will require you to re-validate with a captcha and/or a validation e-mail after 6 months or a year of inactivity. At least one board I know of has a strict policy that you must have at least a couple of posts proving that you are human, and interested in contributing to the community, or your account will be deleted after a few weeks.

[Z98]

I personally want to purge all forum accounts that have zero posts. I'm facing resistance from other project members.

[vicmarcal]

I personally want to purge all forum accounts that have zero posts. I'm facing resistance from other project members.

Yeah. The main problem is about deleting valid accounts.Imho, we should delete those which satisfy: (account.posts<=0) && (account.innactivity>=6months)
I doubt a guy will get offended if we just delete his account because 0 inactivity.

[Dave3434]

dam spammers, what will the new site look like?

[Yaraslau]

I personally want to purge all forum accounts that have zero posts.

I support your idea. There is no reason to keep every dead user.

[hto]

Some people do not post on the forum, but still use Bugzilla. Otherwise that's right.

[PurpleGurl]

Yes, purging inactive members sometimes helps. In the past, I would have said old inactive accounts were just lurkers, since spammers used to spam immediately. Then I started seeing some in online groups I hosted who waited 1-3 weeks before spamming. Also, there is the possibility of compromised email addresses. While most return addresses that spammers use are fake, there are times when they may hijack someone's existing accounts. If the difficulty of setting up new accounts is greater then the difficulty of assuming existing accounts, then they might just do that.

The comments about trying to close us down are possible, though probably not likely, hopefully.

[EmuandCo]

I personally want to purge all forum accounts that have zero posts. I'm facing resistance from other project members.

i support it. ppl who dont post anything dont need no account, too...

[andreas84]

well again how about modifying the homepage with bottraps as example honeypots - of which some claimed to be able to catch nearly all bots.

edit:
oh one step back. it might be manual or semi manual spam where the human guides the bot to avoid traps.
how about putting spamer and old accounts to mute so only they can see theyr posts without deleting the account. if they later write something proper an admin could check and they could be unmuted.

the big thing is if it is manual controlled spam it will follow to the new homepage

eitherway get a "delete all posts of this user" button

[DOSGuy]

I personally want to purge all forum accounts that have zero posts. I'm facing resistance from other project members.

For my own forum, I delete any accounts that have no activity within their first 30 days. They can have 0 posts as long as they have sent a PM or voted in a poll. I just created a really simple SQL query that checks to see if users have done something since they registered.