If you still see spam, would you please be sure to tag it? (or email validation has been turned on)
We have turned on email verification as a requirement to post a question at the forum.
If you are a new user, sorry for the extra step, but the spam was getting out of hand. Even with a captcha on the form, it still came pouring in. They are either using real people or captcha isn't good enough any more.
One answer
I hate the idea of active moderation since we don't have dedicated moderators in every geography. If someone is willing to register, validate their email and enter the captcha to post, I'm not quite sure what can reasonably be done to stop them. I believe the web site team is looking at some other anti-spam measures (it should be possible to test the message content and simply refuse to post it) -- hopefully we can get that work pushed higher in their backlog.
Comments
sam detweiler
Feb 08 '14, 8:50 a.m.you can only tag 5.. we have at east 10 new ones..
time for active moderation
sam detweiler
Feb 08 '14, 11:26 a.m.I volunteer to help moderate
webmaster is very responsive..
Millard Ellingsworth
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER Feb 08 '14, 2:39 p.m.I'm befuddled by this. When I created a test user with 1 reputation I was unable to post without validating my email and completing the captcha. Spammers must know a way around these things, perhaps security holes in the forum software. Grr.
Millard Ellingsworth
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER Feb 08 '14, 2:46 p.m.Perhaps not security holes. Checking the most recent spammer's recent activity list, they validated their email. Based on the current captcha setting, this person also had to complete that in order to post.
Benjamin Silverman
FORUM ADMINISTRATOR / FORUM MODERATOR / JAZZ DEVELOPER Feb 13 '14, 7:02 p.m.How gracious of you to hide the spammers email address so he can't be reached by other spammers :) I've noticed that the spam that has come up recently is all from users with 6 reputation points (for what that's worth).
Also, I've noticed that "tagging" as spam just bumps it up to the top until someone removes it. At that point we're just helping them get more clicks!! :(
sam detweiler
Feb 13 '14, 7:07 p.m.I vote them down, but not edit. so they don't flow to the top.
Francesco Chiossi
Feb 14 '14, 3:17 a.m.It would be nice to filter out the message tagged as spam from the main Questions view.
If abuse is a concern, you can raise the reputation requirement for retagging.