Mods Please Read - Massive Amount of Spam in the Forums
#1
Is it please possible to do something about the massive amount of spam in the forums recently?

Since I subscribe to some entire sections of the forums I woke up to around 200 spam messages in my inbox this morning, which is starting to get a bit much. It was all this chinese language spam, again.

Maybe new users need to be further restricted and the first several posts individually checked by moderators before these posts reach the forum (and our inboxes) ?

I realise this is all extra work for the moderators (unless it can be further automated), but the situation is really starting to get out of control for us normal users who just want to keep up to date with Kodi.

Sad No
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#2
(2016-03-26, 12:08)jmh2002 Wrote: Is it please possible to do something about the massive amount of spam in the forums recently?

Since I subscribe to some entire sections of the forums I woke up to around 200 spam messages in my inbox this morning, which is starting to get a bit much. It was all this chinese language spam, again.

Maybe new users need to be further restricted and the first several posts individually checked by moderators before these posts reach the forum (and our inboxes) ?

I realise this is all extra work for the moderators (unless it can be further automated), but the situation is really starting to get out of control for us normal users who just want to keep up to date with Kodi.

Sad No

In every thread on the Kodi forum there is a report button that you can use to report spam and other junk to the moderators.

It will alert them and they will take action if the post/thread violates the forum rules.
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#3
I already know about the Report button of course. But I don't think you understand what I wrote Huh

Unfortunately your suggestion won't prevent me still getting a notification email for every new spam thread that was created (and as I said there were around 200 emails this morning)

And in fact normally by the time I get to them, the thread has already been deleted by the moderators.

As I said, this doesn't solve the problem that I described (dozens, if not hundreds of email notifications for newly created spam threads)

No
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#4
Don't subscribe to forum threads is a solution
Read/follow the forum rules.
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#5
Yes Martijn, it is a solution, but I'm sure you can appreciate that it's not a very useful one Wink
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#6
Perhaps a practical suggestion:

Subscribe to those threads you have an interest in, but chose not to be notified by email. Instead, at your own convenience, check your control panel and the see the subscribed threads with new posts. That will give our excellent mods the chance to remove any spam.

It is how I work, and I have never noticed any spam on the forum, the mods get there first.
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#7
Thanks, I understand the various work arounds, but I do in fact like the email notifications, both for threads and forum sections.

For me it's a good way to keep up with all my various forums. All my incoming emails from forums are automatically categorised by subject so it's really nice to see, for example "Kodi: New Thread in Program Add-ons".

I think that having to check things manually quickly becomes overwhelming especially when subscribed to many many forums (not just for Kodi). Plus the Forum features are there, why not use them? And I will admit that the Kodi forum is probably the best one that I use in terms of feature set.

I guess what I am getting at is that email notifications are sent regardless of whether the new thread gets binned because of piracy, or spam.

I guess these spam emails are all coming from new accounts - so maybe new threads from new account holders need to be authorised by a Mod first (before they hit the public forum and a notification is generated)? Or perhaps some sort of delay before sending notifications for new threads would fix this (so that mods more of a chance to catch them)?

PMs work like this don't they? New users don't have privileges to send PMs.

I'm not complaining about the odd thing that slips through the net, I'll just happily delete the email in that case. But recently there has been a massive surge in spam, full of chinese language characters. And unfortunately its necessary to open every single one to see if its spam or genuine before I can delete it.

There were around 200 of these this morning...
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#8
turning on moderation globally even if only for new users, would be an even bigger burden on the mods then the spam.
And we'd get even more dead unused accounts, just because nobody is willing to wait a few hours these days...

a possible solution could be to only send mail notifications for posts by users with a certain min post count.
If that feature exists in MyBB or can be easily added.
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#9
(2016-03-26, 18:27)wsnipex Wrote: turning on moderation globally even if only for new users, would be an even bigger burden on the mods then the spam.
And we'd get even more dead unused accounts, just because nobody is willing to wait a few hours these days...

Understood. I know the mods already have quite a burden.

(2016-03-26, 18:27)wsnipex Wrote: a possible solution could be to only send mail notifications for posts by users with a certain min post count.
If that feature exists in MyBB or can be easily added.

Something like this sounds very interesting thank you, especially since so many new user threads are "My (banned addon) Movies stopped working" or other uninteresting things which they should have either searched for, or posted in the correct already existing thread, instead of starting a new thread themselves (which they normally start in the wrong place too).

THANKS guys for taking some time to consider this Smile I know it started off sounding like a rant, but it wasn't meant to. It's a genuine problem/concern.
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#10
(2016-03-26, 18:27)wsnipex Wrote: a possible solution could be to only send mail notifications for posts by users with a certain min post count.
If that feature exists in MyBB or can be easily added.

I had around 50 notifications in my email inbox again this morning for new spam threads Confused

Any more thoughts on whether something like this might be possible? THANK YOU.
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#11
(2016-04-05, 08:50)jmh2002 Wrote:
(2016-03-26, 18:27)wsnipex Wrote: a possible solution could be to only send mail notifications for posts by users with a certain min post count.
If that feature exists in MyBB or can be easily added.

I had around 50 notifications in my email inbox again this morning for new spam threads Confused

Any more thoughts on whether something like this might be possible? THANK YOU.

Another possibility is to deputize some users as spam monitors with elevated privileges who can allow or disallow the posts of same day new users sitting in the Kodi waiting room.
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#12
(2016-04-05, 08:50)jmh2002 Wrote:
(2016-03-26, 18:27)wsnipex Wrote: a possible solution could be to only send mail notifications for posts by users with a certain min post count.
If that feature exists in MyBB or can be easily added.

I had around 50 notifications in my email inbox again this morning for new spam threads Confused

Any more thoughts on whether something like this might be possible? THANK YOU.

Can one of the Kodi Mods PLEASE look into this as soon as possible. Im receiving hundreds of email notifications again this morning for new Spam posts by new members. New members really need to be blocked/checked/controlled somehow.

THANK YOU Confused
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#13
Yeah yeah we are volunteers, can't do everything. We all work for a living, have family, other interests.
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#14
Yes I realise that. You can see I'm being patient, my first post was 26 March. It would be nice to know is someone is even looking into what wsnipex suggested, or perhaps some other solution?

I work for a living, have family, and other interests too...
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#15
Perhaps you could use your spare time to see if what wsnipex suggested is even possible.

Sent from my U65GT
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Mods Please Read - Massive Amount of Spam in the Forums0