Spam Tips

This is the best practice of all: Review and approve everyone who joins your network, either by yourself or by enlisting the help of Admins. While this is the most time-intensive of your many choices, it virtually guarantees you won’t have a spam problem. Many long-time Network Creators swear by this method. We do this on our own Creators Network, which is devoted solely to customer conversations about Ning. It works very well!

This is one many Network Creators insist on. You have fine-grain controls over this and can choose to moderate some or all created content. You’ll find those choices under Content in the Controls section of your Dashboard. Of course, you don’t have to go it alone. Appoint some members or Admins to help moderate different types of content.

The Spam Watchlist can help you pinpoint members who may be acting suspicious. You can access this list from the Members section of the Moderation area on your Dashboard:

• Members won’t ever know if they end up on this list.
• No action will be taken on members in the Spam Watchlist.
• It’s up to you or your Admins to decide who is or isn’t a spammer.
• The Spam Watchlist algorithm learns as you use it.

Using it is optional, but when you do you help this spam-fighting tool learn about what you consider to be spam on your network. Likewise, if you find a trusted member on your Spam Watchlist, marking them as “Not spammer” will ensure they won’t end up on the list ever again. This tool gets smarter over time, and it can go a long way toward helping you spot — and destroy — spam. Read all about the Spam Watchlist.

A Sign-up Quiz is similar to a CAPTCHA — they’re both tests that are designed to be solved by humans. What’s different about a Sign-Up Quiz is that you decide how difficult it will be to solve.

Want to make sure that person who is signing up is actually a person? With a real email address? Turning on email verification will ensure that all prospective members have to visit their inbox and click on a link to verify their email address. This won’t stop all spammers, but it’s a smart tool to use. This setting is off by default, but you can easily turn on Email Verification.

Bots can’t read. At least, not very well. That’s the premise behind a CAPTCHA. You’ve undoubtedly seen one somewhere on the Internet. It’s a test that requires a potential member to enter letters and/or numbers before joining. As the Network Creator, you have the option of including or not including a CAPTCHA. It’s a proven tool that can help stop spambots dead in their tracks. There's even an audio version for those who may have trouble with these twisted word puzzles. Read about how to turn on your CAPTCHA.

A spammer may join a network and post the same comment again and again on your members’ profile pages. The Ning platform identifies spammers who add a huge number of posts in a rapid-fire manner, but what if hundreds of email notifications have already gone out to the victims? To counteract that, we’ve begun blocking the email notifications spammers seek to trigger when they post profile-comment spam. Their spammy content will still be published, but members won’t receive an email notification about it. When this type of spam happens, the spammer will appear in your Spam Watchlist, and you can then decide to either suspend the member or release them from suspicion.

Don't care for profile comments at all? You can choose to turn off My Page Comment email notifications completely if you prefer from Settings in the Email section of your Dashboard.

Ning has back-end spam tools that identify the most sizable spammers — spambots. These spambots rely on automated scripts that can be very successful when attacking networks that have little or no active moderation; in other words, where no one is minding the store. Our spambot suspenders are able to spot accounts that post an amount of content in a very short period of time that doesn’t seem humanly possible (e.g., in one minute’s time). These back-end tools have made a big difference and are still in place, working behind the scenes to combat spambots.

Are you using all of these spam tools at your disposal? If not, turn them on and give spam a serious smack-down!

If you’re worried someone might not be able to answer a Sign-up Quiz or maybe isn’t familiar with a CAPTCHA (or might simply have difficulty signing up for whatever reason) be sure to “Allow members to report login problems.” This will help both members and prospective members send you a message if they’re having trouble signing up or signing in.

You can easily turn this on from your Dashboard if you haven't already. Look for the Controls section under the Members heading on your Dashboard.

Making It General

Not sure how to create a Sign-up Quiz? Try these proven winners, which are very general in nature and should be super easy for new members — but very hard for an automated spambot:

• What planet do we all live on?
• What’s the opposite of up?
• Which is more: none or a little or a lot?
• 2 + 4 = ?

Making It Specific

A Sign-up Quiz is absolutely ideal for niche communities whose members will all know a fact that a spambot never will. For example, if your network is all about Harry Potter, any prospective member will surely know who killed Dumbledore. If not, they’ll have to Google it. Spambots aren’t quite that smart. And they probably have horrible taste in movies!

No matter how simple you make your Sign-up Quiz, some people may have trouble with it. “What planet do we all live on?” seems like a straightforward question, but even the answers to this extremely general question can vary slightly. Give your members a few to choose from: earth, terra, tierra, la tierra, etc.