Announcing the Spam Watchlist and other anti-spam tools

[Nick Barr]

Later today, we'll be releasing the Spam Watchlist — a new tool to help you fight spam.

This feature surfaces a list of people on your Ning Network that might be spammers, based on an algorithm that analyzes their content:

 

It's totally up to you to take action (either to suspend for spam or whitelist as not a spammer). All the Spam Watchlist does is let you know who seems fishy. You'll find it on your Members Moderation page, and you'll only see a link when there are any members in the list.

The algorithm will get better as you and other Ning Creators interact with the Spam Watchlist — it learns as you either suspend or whitelist members who appear there (if you choose to whitelist a member, they won't show up in this list again). For that reason, we recommend giving it a few weeks to warm up. If you have any feedback on the feature, please let us know using the feedback link that appears on the Spam Watchlist page!

In addition to the Spam Watchlist, we want to help protect your Ning Network from profile comment spam, which we know is particularly annoying.

Today, along with the Spam Watchlist, we're introducing a new checkbox that allows you to completely turn off profile comment emails. Obviously this is bad for engagement and not recommended, but we want to give you a last resort option in the event you're seeing a lot of spam. You'll find this option on your Email Settings page.

Additionally, in the next couple of weeks we'll start scanning profile comments for spam as they are posted. When we see suspicious posts, we'll be able to not trigger an email notification, or throw a CAPTCHA. We'll have more details on that in the coming days.

Please let us know if you have any questions or thoughts.

[Denis]

i agree with you Chris on keeping watch on old members that suddenly develop that habit. I had someone like that on my network. He joined. He played cool for weeks. Befriended members until he had a good mailing list. Then he started messaging them to move on to his own site which was a more professional site than mine with similar objectives. That is a different kind of spam. I doubt how effective the spam watch list can stop this until I see it working.

Regarding the approval tool. Yes it is great. I use it. It's effective but not without it's own drawbacks:

NCs and admins are stuck there waiting to approve. New members sort of lose their anxiety when asked to wait for approval. Ever since we started approving members we have noticed members who withdraw their membership application or simply don't come back when they get approved. Most of our networks have tons of alternatives if you are in a niche like mine (ESL). The user who is going to wait for 8hours until you get back from work, eat dinner, take a shower then approve him to join your network is probably you former classmate or colleague at work not someone who found your network through search engines.

I still think putting all new members on a kind of temporary status that limits what they can do on a network would be the best shot.

[Chris]

I agree Denis, that makes sense. I lost members to shoddy competitors back in the day when cross network invites were possible. I'd still like some sort of monitoring of PM's as this is a common way to spread spam unnoticed. E.g. I'g like to know if a member sends a message to more than 10 people, or sends more than 10 messages a day with similar content. I'd also like to be able to flag certain words or terms, so that I get alerted if they crop up in PM's or comments.

 

But I welcome this new step, and I would like to know if it includes PM's. Anyone?

[Nick Barr]

Chris, it doesn't currently look at PMs. Have you received reports of spam in private messages?

[Chris]

Oh yes, spam and invitations plus unpleasantness / bullying or just plain pointless mass mailing which turns users off. Not many reports over the years but combine that with the mis-directed replies / bounces I see, and the fact that 97.2% of anything goes unreported (yes, I made that figure up, but I reckon it's close...) then my conclusion is that I'd like to know more... It would be great if we could extend this to PM's and friend requests (and friend request messages) as these could be the most common forms of misbehaviour on networks with member approval turned on. They're unseen at the moment, but it would be good to have a peek and see.

I'm sure the overlords of FB / Myspace can view any message anyone sends, and use that as part of their arsenal against spam.

[Matt Coston]

Yes, I agree that forcing people to wait for approval means you will lose their immediate engagement, which I believe is really important. I too get the impression that people never come back to my site after being approved.

[Kai]

I think it is funny how everyone bashes the new spam tools implemented by one of the best support teams I have ever worked with yet when they talk about adding features like the subscription services to help prevent this and add the limitation of usage new members have access to people complain about that. This is on of the benefits of having the ability to control what members have access too. Implementing the paid membership program will give us the ability to set trail periods and limit different content to those who are not spammers. I have never met a spammer willing to pay even a small fee to spam. I always tell people if I gave you a penny today and two the next and kept doubling it for an entire month how much will you have by the end of the month the answer is over ten million dollars. So even if you limit your selected content for just pennies you can still make a good amount of money and cut out spamming altogether. Yet again many NC's seem to find paid memberships as a bad idea. My suggestion stop complaining about the help that is being offered and start using your heads. I mean let get wiser we are all creators here trying to run successful networks let take the sources and resources we have and use them to our advantage for both NC's and members. We all benefit from it. I mean active members will surely pay pennies for quality content of interest if it mean that they wouldn't have to be annoyed by all the spammers. I know I would and I have. Also To the Ning team when working on the paid membership program would it also be possible to allow members to post content that they can later add small fees to, this will in a way cut down the spammers and also allow for the really active members to earn a little from the high quality content they create on our networks but they will have to be approved by NC's before they can add these fee. That could not only help our networks but help our members as well Thanks

[Chris]

 

You make many good points, and I agree with most of what you say, except you forget e.g. not-for-profit or educational sites etc. Paid membership is NOT appropriate for all networks, please don't generalise on this! Differentiating membership levels will be very useful, but not even for pennies. Some sites need this for nothing. For free.

 

Some of us aren't in this for the root of all evil ;-)

 

 

[Kai]

I not in it for evil at all and for non profits and edu networks instead of actual money they could implement a coin or token system allowing members to be paid credits as to apposed to real money and those credits can be used to restrict certain content. Kind of how the gift system works without having to pay for the credits certain actions can be done that will reward members for their participation or creation of content or after certain content reaches the high quality level set by the NC's through the credit program feature the content will earn credits that the member can use for restricting his content to only those members who have the amount of credits to spend to access that content. This will in turn also help bring the amount of spamming to a minimum. It doesn't always have to be about money and earning credits can be a fun way to promote content to other members as well. Thanks for make your key points I didn't consider that in my first post. I am only human but I am trying to also help figure out and create a way to help aid in this spam control project. I mean the methods I use tend to work perfectly for me but for those with larger networks these are just a few Ideas that could help.

[Chris]

 

 

Why overcomplicate it? My network has very little spam, and your suggestions would have absolutely no impact on it for reasons I've mentioned elsewhere. I'd like to restrict certain content but why should I have to go though some token and reward system when that's not what's appropriate for the network? Instead I'd like to give members levels based on other criteria, thank you very much. One of the main benefits of the Ning platform is it's versatility - why should I be forced to go down a road just because you think it's a good idea?

 

Don't get me wrong - your ideas are great, and I do like the idea of the rewards for participation, but you're still generalising. Paid membership levels, or some "pseudo-paid via token" membership levels is not for all networks, please stop trying to force it on all of us.

 

I'd love rewards for participation, but that should not necessarily be tied into greater site access, you could be asking for trouble, depending on how your network is set up.

 

I'd also love different member levels, but perhaps simply set by NC's / Admins, not paid for or earned by site activity.

 

You don't know anything about my networks, please don't try to tell me what's good for them :)

 

 

[Kai]

ok it was just a few ideas I thought might help but if it not for you then that is fine with me. I know it is not for every network or type of network and feel thank all ideas should at least be heard. You never know what kind of break troughs can come from listening to other peoples ideas and opinions. I don't really know how you network is set up so that you are right about but there are other ways around the whole spam thing. I can see you are not really open to any new suggestions unless it's what you want so I will be sure not to post anymore to you. I will keep them to myself for now on. I will Send my Ideas to The NING team next time. Maybe I might get a little more respect for trying to help. Have a good day and hope you find what could help for the way your network is set up. By the way what is the URL to your network I would like to check it out don't worry I am not a spammer. I just like to research for new ideas. Thanks

[Nick Barr]

Chris, Kai, thanks for your thoughts! Lots of good points here, and I know no disrespect was intended either way. Like you've captured, there's no catch-all solution for every network, but there are lots of techniques and potential features that can continue to help.

[Chris]

Kai - as I said in my first reply, "You make many good points, and I agree with most of what you say". Please don't be offended, I simply felt that what you were proposing wasn't necessarily for all of us. I did say I like your ideas, so keep them coming. Just please remember the diversity of networks on here.