Review of Merit & other antispam filters used on Bitcointalk (& on other forums)

[borpolev]

Hi all,

In connection with the introduction of the new antispam filter - Merits - I would like to summarize what antispam filters I have found on the Bitcointalk forum. And at the end of this post, I'll also list some other antispam filtering methods that are commonly used on forums.

So, what I've found to be currently used on Bitcointalk forum :

• Flood control forces users to wait for an interval between making posts to the forum, thus preventing spambots from overwhelming the forum with repeated spam messages. The intervals decrease with increased rank of user.
• CAPTCHA (visual confirmation) on forum registration page - it can help prevent spambots from carrying out automated registrations. For Bitcointalk forum, advanced CAPTCHA system is used called "Recaptcha" (images recognition), as simple captcha systems which display alphanumeric characters have proven vulnerable to optical character recognition software but those that scramble the characters appear to be far more effective.
• Confirmation e-mails to users who registered, with activation code/link.
• Searching engine has got an interval, after which you can search again. This interval decreases with increasing user rank.
• Trust system - spammers can be marked with negative trust.
• And the new Merit system

And what are some other techniques for avoiding, removing, and mitigating forum spam, used in other forums?
Some of them might be used on Bitcointalk forum as well, but they are not visible to users, so hard to say..

• Blacklisting services such as fspamlist, StopForumSpam and BotScout keep databases of IP addresses, usernames and e-mail addresses used to post spam or register forum accounts. Forum software can query these lists and either deny posts or registration, or submit the request for human moderation.
• Textual confirmation as an alternative to CAPTCHA in which the user answers one or more random questions to prove that he/she is not a spambot.
• Manual registration approval by administrators for each account.
• Denial of registration from certain domains that are a major source of spambots, or even domain extensions
• Manual examination of new registrants for several indicators. Spammers often delay email confirmation of several hours, while humans will confirm promptly. Spambots tend to create relatively noisy user names in order to ensure uniqueness.
• Using a search engine to investigate usernames for hits as recognized spambots on other forums.
• Changing technical details of the forum software to confuse bots
• Blocking posts or registrations that contain certain blacklisted words.
• Monitoring IPs used by untrusted posters, like anonymous posts or newly registered users. A useful technique for proactive detection of well-known spammer proxies is to query a search engine for this IP. It will - show up on pages that specialize in the listing of proxies.

Hopefully you find this information interesting and useful. I wonder if you know about any other antispam filtering method used on Bitcointalk? Or any other good filtering method used on other forums, that is not mentioned above?

Have a good day !
Boris

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[borpolev]

Hi all, anyone found this useful?

[juicyjanet88]

I can't help but notice a big similarity in most of the suggestions from other forums is that they are designed to target bots. I could be wrong on this and if someone with more insight sees this and wants to chip in then please do, but I do not get the feeling that there are many bots designed to spam the forum. More that it is individuals who create multiple accounts either to later sell them or to participate in bounty campaigns. Thus the majority of those suggestions are pretty much redundant.

[galkina]

I like the merit system more in comparison to other measures. Other measures like captcha and interval between posts can be handled with bots. With merit system, you have to get appreciation from real members here to rank up.

[mrelich]

I like the merit system more in comparison to other measures. Other measures like captcha and interval between posts can be handled with bots. With merit system, you have to get appreciation from real members here to rank up.

Yes, the merit system is very clever. The only weak point I can see in this system is that some people would try to trade with it - I've already seen a thread here on Bitcoitalk from a user trying to sell it. Perhaps merit should be limited some way, like one person could only send a limited amount of merit points to another person? Or perhaps there has already been such a limitation already?

[krishnaverma]

Yes, the merit system is very clever. The only weak point I can see in this system is that some people would try to trade with it - I've already seen a thread here on Bitcoitalk from a user trying to sell it. Perhaps merit should be limited some way, like one person could only send a limited amount of merit points to another person? Or perhaps there has already been such a limitation already?

You are right about the fact that some people might trade with merit points or sell points. But these are getting caught (as they are giving merit points for spam posts) and being given negative trust by the senior members. With time people will realize that selling merit points is not worth it as an account with negative trust is almost useless.

[lukyanli]

In connection with the introduction of the new antispam filter - Merits - I would like to summarize what antispam filters I have found on the Bitcointalk forum. And at the end of this post, I'll also list some other antispam filtering methods that are commonly used on forums.

In my opinion new members should not be allowed to make more than 10 posts in a day. Currently they can post as much as they want after 360 seconds each.

[mrelich]

In my opinion new members should not be allowed to make more than 10 posts in a day. Currently they can post as much as they want after 360 seconds each.

With the new merit system, there is no reason for them to post many posts a day. If they get no merit for them, they can't upgrade their status anyway..

[tekusa]

With the new merit system, there is no reason for them to post many posts a day. If they get no merit for them, they can't upgrade their status anyway..

Activity is still required. Once they get merit points, they can continue with shit posts.

[borpolev]

With the new merit system, there is no reason for them to post many posts a day. If they get no merit for them, they can't upgrade their status anyway..

Activity is still required. Once they get merit points, they can continue with shit posts.

Yes, but for the higher ranks, there is more merit required than a number of posts. So when they get enough merit, they should also have enough posts for a higher rank so the won't need to post shit posts any more,

[mrelich]

Hi,
I think that the following ones from your list would be useful to implement on Bitcointalk - if they haven't been implemented yet (no way to check)

- Blacklisting services such as fspamlist, StopForumSpam and BotScout keep databases of IP addresses, usernames and e-mail addresses used to post spam or register forum accounts. Forum software can query these lists and either deny posts or registration, or submit the request for human moderation.

- Denial of registration from certain domains that are a major source of spambots, or even domain extensions

- Using a search engine to investigate usernames for hits as recognized spambots on other forums.

- Monitoring IPs used by untrusted posters, like anonymous posts or newly registered users. A useful technique for proactive detection of well-known spammer proxies is to query a search engine for this IP. It will - show up on pages that specialize in the listing of proxies.