Wazzup with these weird posts?

Like "History Degrees Online Colleges" and others by probably very short-lived mdtocrtchd and his (its) colleagues.

Obviously something "botic", but nothing more than a meaningless line. No links to dubious sites AFAIS. I don't get it.

In the end the powers that be bans them and removes whatever, thus maintaining equilibrium. But I'M CURIOUS!!!!

pibbur who really is curious.

PS. By googling I see that mr. mdtocrtchd has been active and banned on several other sites. DS.

Broken bots. A link to some malware site was supposed to be included (which would render those posts instantly invisible) but they failed add any links.

Maybe they belong to Bethesda.

I'm guessing they try to create a certain number of random posts so they can then add their links without moderation.

It's a bit like when a bunch of randoms turn up for the Watch giveaways and post a load of banal fluff to get their post count up. Only the bots are less annoying.

Originally Posted by Ripper
….post a load of banal fluff to get their post count up…

Hey! I'm not posting just to get my count up.

Mostly.

pibbur who … eh … admits that this one may be one of those posts. 2863 and counting….

Mythos must be having too much fun at Gamescon.

Maybe I'll try and contact these people about a site called RPGCodex. That would be fun.

Originally Posted by Lucky Day
Mythos must be having too much fun at Gamescon.

Maybe I'll try and contact these people about a site called RPGCodex. That would be fun.

You evil thing!!!

pibbur

What Ripper said in his first sentence.
I guess someone has figured out all the things related to our spam protection mechanisms.
Time for new actions. Either new spam protection or the final step, which is having all new posters go through moderation first and only after a moderator has accepted the first few posts you can freely post stuff.

Originally Posted by Myrthos
What Ripper said in his first sentence.
I guess someone has figured out all the things related to our spam protection mechanisms.
Time for new actions. Either new spam protection or the final step, which is having all new posters go through moderation first and only after a moderator has accepted the first few posts you can freely post stuff.

How are you doing with this? They are coming in like a hurricane these days,

I wonder if there's a spam management plugin that would allow for a wider group of trusted members to help out with spam killing and new member moderation. I know there's such things on other platforms.

The current spam protection is not very good IMO. An example is this "thread":
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37622
The thread's title and post are the very same sentence. That's an obvious spam any filter should automatically detect and block/remove.

Ripper's idea is not bad but that's open to abuse in case someone's data is breached.
I'd rather see thumbdown/spamalert system where a new thread "marked" as bad by several members is considered as potential spam, set as hidden and as such moved to moderation queue.

Drastic, but maybe necessary? - Halt all new registrations until further notice. I think this was done before, if my memory isn't off.

Originally Posted by joxer
Ripper's idea is not bad but that's open to abuse in case someone's data is breached.

What do you mean?

Someone steals your e-mail and pass then goes on rampage.

Originally Posted by joxer
Someone steals your e-mail and pass then goes on rampage.

Well, the idea of the type of solution I'm talking about is that it gives very limited powers to a group of members. They wouldn't have full moderation powers, but just help to accept or reject the posts from new members in the moderation queue. The potential for a rampage with just those permissions would be very low.