Re:Reducing website spam
by TomGullen on Thursday December 01, 2011 @02:38PM
(#3301103)
If you're being targeted by humans, you're right, nothing you can really do. If they are using automates systems to target you best thing to do is start IP banning.
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Ever since my forum got popular, I've had non-stop trouble with human spammers. Straight up IP banning doesn't work. Too explicit and obvious.
A better solution is to let them register, but check all registration/post IP addresses against the blacklist. If they match, unobtrusively move them into a usergroup that just seems like your site isn't working that well.
Works wonders.
Yep. There was an interesting article about this practice (hellban / slowban) a while ago:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/06/suspension-ban-or-h...
Re:Reducing website spam
by keeperofdakeys on Friday December 02, 2011 @06:22AM
(#3303592)
A better solution is to let them register, but check all registration/post IP addresses against the blacklist. If they match, unobtrusively move them into a usergroup that just seems like your site isn't working that well.
Reddit uses a similar system called shadow banning. When a user is shadow banned, they think their content and submissions make it through, but they actually are hidden to other users. On rare occasions, real users can accidentally get shadow banned; this is not ideal, but shadow banning is effective enough that the sacrifice is made.