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  • Website Opinions
  • Spam
  • Tom's Hardware
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October 9, 2010 4:12:36 AM

Is it possible for tomshardware to add more captcha's for account creation and find other ways to stop automated spamming accounts?

Most stories will have around 5-10 comments that are just spam. While they can be reported to moderators, it is still very annoying. Many other sites that are just as popular manage to deal with this problem much better.

More about : spam comments

October 9, 2010 4:34:08 AM

I don't think they are bots. If we were getting bots we'd likely see more porn and viagra stuff being posted.
October 9, 2010 5:19:57 AM

It just seems weird the rate at which the spam is posted and how the different accounts post at similar times, ( I bet there probably using the same IP).

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October 9, 2010 5:28:10 AM

Some of them seem bot-like. I've seen a lot of them register at 12:00, and post up to ~90 posts in a short amount of time, before I ban and suppress.
October 9, 2010 6:35:33 AM

razor512 said:
It just seems weird the rate at which the spam is posted and how the different accounts post at similar times, ( I bet there probably using the same IP).

Not the same IP, but certainly similar IPs. They're all coming from China.
October 9, 2010 11:39:22 PM

+1 for implementing re-captch. Also, can we have a time out for new accounts to post in comments/Forums? Basically, you can't post more than 4 comments within a minute of each other.

Adding some filters for the URLs they use would also help. I know BoM can do this as there are some sites blacklisted already.

This should only be used as a last resort and I DO NOT SUPPORT IT: You can block all traffic originating from China.

@Devs/BoM:
Also, can we PLEASE get IP Banning abilities!!!
October 10, 2010 1:21:34 AM

We would only need to block stuff coming from one region in China it seems. Almost every post is from an IP address used in the Fujian province. The trouble is that there's no guarantee that IP address blocks won't be shuffled around in the future. I don't know if Chinese ISPs guarantee permanent static IP addresses to customers.

As for the word filter, stuff is being added all the time. The trouble is it doesn't work if the post occurs from the article comments section. The filter only works for posts made directly in the forum.

I think there's already some sort of flood protection, but I don't know what its configuration is. It probably doesn't affect comments anyway.
October 10, 2010 10:52:05 PM

Quote:
I don't know if Chinese ISPs guarantee permanent static IP addresses to customers.

I'm not 100% on this but I *think* that the ISPs are required to have static IPs in China.
October 13, 2010 12:23:38 PM

I've marked quite a lot of 'em as SPAM and send to moderators. Hope they wont look at the long list of spam reports I've send them and think that I'm spamming the mods :D 
October 13, 2010 5:24:23 PM

KingArcher said:
I've marked quite a lot of 'em as SPAM and send to moderators. Hope they wont look at the long list of spam reports I've send them and think that I'm spamming the mods :D 

Not at all mate, keep 'em coming.
October 1, 2011 3:50:36 PM

Its still a problem
!