Spammer Bots with.e.mail.likethis.a.lot.of.dots.making.us.crazy!!!!!

[Marcelo Rodrigues]

Guys,

I post this question in another similar topic. But since I haven't receive any reply, I am trying again here. Sorry to repeat.

PLEASE NING ADMINS!!!

We need a solution for those spammer bots who create stupid e-mails like the title I wrote above.

I have two networks, even the one which is in portuguese, is having the same problem. 

Everyday I have to suspend between 5 and 10 of this bots. Everyday! I use e-mail confirmation and captcha.

The problem is that they post content and my networks become ugly and nonsense, with a lot of christmas, medicine, haircuts, whatever offers. But we talk about technology!

PLEASE NING TEAM. HELP HERE!!!

[JFarrow]

easy solution:  Turn on the feature that makes them confirm their email address.  Then change your sign-up quiz to something only your 'type' of members would know.  Got rid of mine in a snap

[Eric Suesz]

Hey, Marcelo. Your title for this discussion is wonderful. Well played. 

Sorry if we haven't been able to respond to you on this issue. We can't always respond to everyone, but I'll give it my best shot here as I have in other spots. 

I think that JFarrow's Sign-up Quiz suggestion is a good one, but I know that this is a frustration for people who want to make it easier for legitimate people to sign up. The recent tools we released aren't going to help with GMail addresses, since you can't ban all GMail addresses. Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer for you. Some people have suggested a few things we could do:

• Deny addresses with a certain number of dots in the email address, but as you can see here, this can lock out legitimate people as well. 
• One person insisted we could pick up the phone and call Google and the issue could be solved. 
• Some people think we should have a database of blacklisted email addresses. However, this could be problematic because it would inevitably ban legitimate people. 

Spam is a difficult issue, to be sure. I guess the best advice I can give is to use as many of these tools we've created as you can. And, turn on member moderation. I moderate this community and see spambots from time to time, but so far my vigilance has paid off. We've never really had spam in this community because we moderate membership. 

[JFarrow]

yes and they watch this forum so anything we suggest publically.will be accounted for in their plan...  

maybe you could compare the followers of this discussion ip addresses to those who comment...

[Marcelo Rodrigues]

That's bad. I hope Ning can come up with something more effective.

Until then, I think I will try the quiz. Captcha and e-mail confirmation are not enough here.

I saw that we can ban IP adresses and domains. But this I think won't help because they can change  all the time.

Thank you guys for the replies and ideas!

[Alessandro Sporleder]

I'm deleting about 7 new spammers per day. I also use captcha and email confirmation. The new tool for ban IP address and domains can't be applied, they are all @gmail and IP addresses from many places.

It's an interesting idea to use the quiz but I din't want to add another question to new users. I understand the difficulties Eric explained, but before I define a new question with a quiz, I'd like to know if development is researching any method to reduce spammers registering, for example a tool similar to captcha but that works.

Thanks.

[Eric Suesz]

We are not working on our own version of CAPTCHA. I think a quiz can actually be a great way to promote exclusivity. But, I can understand that you want to keep the sign-up problem as light as possible. 

[Marcelo Rodrigues]

Guys,

The quiz is the best solution we tested here. The new member have more work to do during registration but we have less spammers now.

Try a quick and simple question that only a human could answer correctly.

Good look!