How to deal with spammers bumping old threads?

[400actforsale]

I keep seeing old offers from few months to a year ago being bumped up by newbies, and other members (whatever rank) started to reply to it without checking if the offer is active or not. These offers are almost certainly dead after that long period of time (and without further replies by OP bumping up it) so it would be useless to reply them.

So can the forum auto lock those topics to prevent whatever spammers posting on it? Or legit users may be confused by these old-bumped-dead topics. Adding a field about topic start date would also be a good solution, but this requires a redesign of the interface there.

What do you think?

Edit: Changed the title. The old title was 'Auto lock topics in the Service board is they are un-replied for few months?'.

[hilariousandco]

It does give you a warning after x amount of months but maybe some sort of lock should be considered. There was an annoying newbie spammer yesterday that was trying to bump up his post count pretty quickly by replying to year old threads just with variants of "I'm interested" etc and then about 5-10 other Sig spammers and farmers would post something of the same and it's very time consuming to delete all the responses. Maybe old threads should be autolocked after x amount of time with a message auto posted stating to PM the op if they're interested or want to re-open the thread. Many times the op hasn't even logged in in months or even years sometimes.

[400actforsale]

... and then about 5-10 other Sig spammers and farmers would post something of the same ...

Yes this is annoying too (in fact I had replyed to one of those threads yesterday told them not to reply anymore as that thread was very old). So limiting the number of posts made in those specific sections would also help (on top of the 360 second lock for newbies)? Like max. 3 posts per day on 'Services' board for newbies etc.

Changing the thread title to 'How to deal with spammers bumping old threads?' would be more suitable for this discussion.

[Jet Cash]

Most boards seem to lock "old" threads, and If the content becomes topical again, they ask members to start a new thread and link to the old one.

The question is - how old is old. I would suggest one month without any activity would be enough to lock the thread. This is if referencing dead threads becomes the way to revitalise the topic.

[yahoo62278]

@hilariousandco mention it to theymos to code in an auto lock of threads with no reply after 30 days. Would make mods jobs easier and cutback on the bumping of old posts from spammers.

[botany]

If old threads do get auto-locked, there should be a provision to quote posts from locked threads.
There is no reason why that should be disabled.

[NeuroticFish]

While auto-lock after 30 days sounds very good, until such thing is implemented, there's something else that may be done and may pay off:
Report the users who bump the old threads to their signature campaign managers. Because most of such bumps are done with the only purpose to gain "post count" (unless we talk about genuine newbies). And in such cases warning and/or kick out of signature campaign because of spam will make them learn.
I don't know if it's too harsh, but .. well.. it's an idea....

[snipie]

Report the users who bump the old threads to their signature campaign managers. Because most of such bumps are done with the only purpose to gain "post count" (unless we talk about genuine newbies). And in such cases warning and/or kick out of signature campaign because of spam will make them learn.
I don't know if it's too harsh, but .. well.. it's an idea....

There was an annoying newbie spammer yesterday that was trying to bump up his post count pretty quickly by replying to year old threads just with variants of "I'm interested" etc and then about 5-10 other Sig spammers and farmers would post something of the same and it's very time consuming to delete all the responses.

It is annoying and some people dislikes it so they call the necro guy to stop doing it and call the mods to lock that topic
In the other hand in my opinion the necro newbie is just an alt of a sig guy who try to increase his posts so he may answer just after the necro or wait few posts after few members to avoid being busted

Hilariousandco idea is great and what botany said is logic and i asked the same question months ago but what i suggest in the meantime is to delete the spammy posts after the necro one without exception and manually lock the topic until the previous idea come to life
If someone is trying to open a real discussion about the same locked topic he can open a new one then mention the locked one in his post or copy the text and put it on a quote.

[Lauda]

In the other hand in my opinion the necro newbie is just an alt of a sig guy who try to increase his posts so he may answer just after the necro or wait few posts after few members to avoid being busted

I'm certain that in most of the necro-posting cases that this is the case (as opposed to a genuine user). Based on my own observations of necro posting, I have seen the following cases:

1) Potentially *genuine* users that bump it up with a single post (doesn't attract any posters / gets deleted quickly).
2) Standard spammers that slowly start posting in the thread since it has been bumped up without checking the date.
3) Rings of spammers that jump in very quickly after it has been necro'd (like a herd of sheep).
4) Bots that post a link or nonsense.
That said, there aren't *many* good reasons to do this. Even when there is one, it is usually very rare and due to this I'm going to talk to theymos regarding the auto-locking suggestion.

[snipie]

Talking about necro and here is a fresh example
The last participation was posted on 18 July 2016 but as always a newbie came after 5 months exactly in 21 December 2016 to spam... Well he only quoted a previous post without adding any word... then a junior member makes a useful post! Followed by 4 sig participants posting general random digested ideas
Maybe they didn't pay attention? But this scam was famous and discussed over and over in many topics months ago!!
Should I report every post or just the first random? Deleting these posts + nuking the newbie + a warning for those members is a must tho...

Link : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1528295.msg15629888

[hilariousandco]

Just report the necrobump and staff will handle the rest.

[iram3130]

Just report the necrobump and staff will handle the rest.

Yes. Definitely, many of us do that. But I think we need some automatic feature. Coz this is much random and some newbies won't even understand that the post is long gone and not active now.

[LTU_btc]

I think that auto locking of old threads is not very good idea. For example, owners of small and not popular services rarely post to their topic and rarely get responsesfr om users. But sometimes they need to bump or update their topic, or user want to ask important question.
Maybe it would be better just report bumps made by signature spammers?

[400actforsale]

I think that auto locking of old threads is not very good idea. For example, owners of small and not popular services rarely post to their topic and rarely get responsesfr om users. But sometimes they need to bump or update their topic, or user want to ask important question.
Maybe it would be better just report bumps made by signature spammers?

No, just no.

If some user wanted to ask question on a small service whose post isn't posted in a long period of time, they can simply open a new thread or PM the site owner. Or the thread starter may specify the auto lock time of his thread, maybe from as short as 7 days to as long as 3 months.

[snipie]

I think that auto locking of old threads is not very good idea. For example, owners of small and not popular services rarely post to their topic and rarely get responsesfr om users. But sometimes they need to bump or update their topic, or user want to ask important question.
Maybe it would be better just report bumps made by signature spammers?

No, just no.

If some user wanted to ask question on a small service whose post isn't posted in a long period of time, they can simply open a new thread or PM the site owner. Or the thread starter may specify the auto lock time of his thread, maybe from as short as 7 days to as long as 3 months.

Didn't understand what you are talking about
Every service owner could bump his topic once every 24 hours so the auto-lock will not affect them... It will affect the old and inactive topics

[LTU_btc]

I think that auto locking of old threads is not very good idea. For example, owners of small and not popular services rarely post to their topic and rarely get responsesfr om users. But sometimes they need to bump or update their topic, or user want to ask important question.
Maybe it would be better just report bumps made by signature spammers?

No, just no.

If some user wanted to ask question on a small service whose post isn't posted in a long period of time, they can simply open a new thread or PM the site owner. Or the thread starter may specify the auto lock time of his thread, maybe from as short as 7 days to as long as 3 months.

Didn't understand what you are talking about
Every service owner could bump his topic once every 24 hours so the auto-lock will not affect them... It will affect the old and inactive topics

I'm talking about topics which are updated rarely. Some owners post service announcement and then leave topic without updates for long. And if they would need to post update after long time, or user want to ask question about service , they would find topic locked and then they need to create new topic.