# Spam message in Season Pass Alerts?!



## zand94 (May 20, 2002)

Any idea what changes were made that are allowing the spam postings that have begun to take place in the Season Pass Alerts area?


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## rhuntington3 (May 1, 2001)

Spammers still slip through. I have reported the posts.


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## stark (Dec 31, 2003)

What happened to the five post threshold before the user could post a link?

Most of these spam posts have a count of 1 but still contain links.


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## klia (Apr 13, 2005)

There's another one today. How do you report these posts? I'd do it if I could figure out how.


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## JayDog (Jul 15, 2004)

klia said:


> There's another one today. How do you report these posts? I'd do it if I could figure out how.


On each post, below the user name is a red "yield" type looking sign. click that.


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## klia (Apr 13, 2005)

Ah, thank you!


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## dkaz (Aug 30, 2007)

stark said:


> What happened to the five post threshold before the user could post a link?


sadly, we can't find that option in the new version of vBulletin 

we're still looking for replacements, though


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## rhuntington3 (May 1, 2001)

dkaz said:


> sadly, we can't find that option in the new version of vBulletin
> 
> we're still looking for replacements, though


Bummer! Best of luck!


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## MirclMax (Jul 12, 2000)

dkaz said:


> sadly, we can't find that option in the new version of vBulletin
> 
> we're still looking for replacements, though


Not sure who exactly is doing the looking ... but how 'bout ya just use this?

http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=123002

Even if you couldn't find a pre-made mod for it (see link above) .. surely the new owners have people on staff who can make a small .php hack to block URL's in messages where the post count is < 5. .... But anyhow .. prepackaged and compatible with 3.6.8


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## dkaz (Aug 30, 2007)

MirclMax said:


> Not sure who exactly is doing the looking ... but how 'bout ya just use this?
> 
> http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=123002
> 
> Even if you couldn't find a pre-made mod for it (see link above) .. surely the new owners have people on staff who can make a small .php hack to block URL's in messages where the post count is < 5. .... But anyhow .. prepackaged and compatible with 3.6.8


I considered that hack, but didn't had a chance to read the 23 pages worth of feedback.

It seemed powerful, but somewhat risky to install w/o a bit of research.

Has anyone here installed it before elsewhere?


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## MirclMax (Jul 12, 2000)

dkaz said:


> I considered that hack, but didn't had a chance to read the 23 pages worth of feedback.
> It seemed powerful, but somewhat risky to install w/o a bit of research.
> Has anyone here installed it before elsewhere?


Well, for the records, I want to point out that I've never used that mod, I know nothing more about it than I've read today real quickly. I was only responding to your comment of "sadly, we can't find that option in the new version of vBulletin" and I figured ... oh please, I'm sure I can find something in less than 5 minutes .. and I was right.

Yes, there are tons of feedback for it. I suggest reading the last 5 or so pages. (Say from the last update on) .. my quick glancing shows that people seem to love it. As far as inquiring about people having installed it... well that thread is filled with people who are using it. And I would suggest that the VB forum is probably a better place to ask than here. Oh, of course, you could just set up a test server and try it out.

I do agree with you that it perhaps is a *bit* overkill for what you are trying to do. It does a lot, and this is but a single feature. *PERSONALLY*, I would just make a hack for this myself. I would piggieback off of the code that handles "Automatically parse links in text" .. at some point it checks to see if that is checked .. as in (total example here, I am not looking at the code .. but would if you paid me  ) ... if ($parselinks) {} .. mod all those places to be if ($parselinks || $lowpostcount){} where $lowpostcount is a query you did earlier to see if they have less than 5 (or whatever) posts. then instead of the part where it parses the link .. you have it block the link if $lowpostcount is true. I only suggest doing it that way because clearly the forum has the code in it to identify URL's in posts .. you just use that and add one more check on it.

That's my goal orientated problem solving mode kicking in. Stepping back from that for a moment.. I think the whole idea is rather pointless. Is blocking a URL in a post until 5 posts really going to solve anything? Or does it just annoy newbies? I'm looking at the registration page .. and you've already got a CAPTCHA set up .. so I'm guessing that these aren't robots (if they are, you have bigger issues to deal with), these are people doing this manually. They're just going to post 5 messages.

So why not do some vetting? Don't let a new user post right after signup. From the looks of it, you average no more than 20 new users a day. Let a person sign up, and have someone running the board change their status from "newbie" to "registered".. giving them post access. That's assuming that you could identify these people based on their registration data (you folks have seen how their signing up and would know if you could). Then there is the problem that these registrations look perfectly fine and there is no way to spot them. So, you tackle it from another angle. Write a mod that reports any post from a user registered under a week .. or with less than 5 posts that contains a URL to a moderator. Generally, I wouldn't think that newbies would be posting a link .. and when they do, your mods would be notified automatically and could check the post and see if it needs to be dealt with.

I would also make the criteria that triggers this not known to the public 

Anyhow, there are lots of options.. Lots of variables depending on whats actually happening (of which I'm not privy) .. If you're looking for a quick fix .. I'd say through up a test machine with VB 3.6.8 (copy all the settings from this site) .. test out the mod in that link I gave you .. and if you like it.. use it. If you want to privately discuss the other issues I've touched on in here.. Feel free to contact me via PM.

Good luck to you.


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## dkaz (Aug 30, 2007)

thanks for all the feedback, MirclMax 

to be honest, i don't even have a good grasp on how much spam actually sneaks through on this site...that's something i'd have to figure out with Bott/Jeff

that would obviously affect the priority of this change


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