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Avoid spam members: better registration process and reporting
Since I'm running a few Ning networks, I've seen a rise in the numbers of spam profiles trying to register.
When they do register, they usually mass-comment on user's profile with usual scam (from webcams to get rich schemes).
To avoid this, I've added two steps to the registration process:
1) admin moderation on each registration (time-consuming, but efficient),
2) mandatory questions (usually, spammers would answer "Tell you later", "N/A" or ".").
Those two combined have helped me curb spamming.
However, I think it would be better to have two extra features to help all admins with that battle:
3) a captcha or a similar human-powered registration process ---even though one profile can register on many networks at the same time by simply signing in instead of signing up (a great feature by itself)
4) a user reporting tool: users that see a spammer profile have the option of blocking him/her, but if they don't send a message to the admin, the latter might be unaware of the situation. A "report" or "flag" button would be nice to have.
As an added bonus (but I don't know if this already exists under the hood) I think that if a single profile gets banned on various networks (with some ratio or specific algorithm), Ning could blacklist it for good.
The fight against spamming will never be completely over, but these steps might be helpful for all Ning networks admins.
Has anyone else any other idea?
When they do register, they usually mass-comment on user's profile with usual scam (from webcams to get rich schemes).
To avoid this, I've added two steps to the registration process:
1) admin moderation on each registration (time-consuming, but efficient),
2) mandatory questions (usually, spammers would answer "Tell you later", "N/A" or ".").
Those two combined have helped me curb spamming.
However, I think it would be better to have two extra features to help all admins with that battle:
3) a captcha or a similar human-powered registration process ---even though one profile can register on many networks at the same time by simply signing in instead of signing up (a great feature by itself)
4) a user reporting tool: users that see a spammer profile have the option of blocking him/her, but if they don't send a message to the admin, the latter might be unaware of the situation. A "report" or "flag" button would be nice to have.
As an added bonus (but I don't know if this already exists under the hood) I think that if a single profile gets banned on various networks (with some ratio or specific algorithm), Ning could blacklist it for good.
The fight against spamming will never be completely over, but these steps might be helpful for all Ning networks admins.
Has anyone else any other idea?
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Inappropriate?We need the members ip this is the best way -
Inappropriate?My experience with scamming is these buggers using friendship requests to draw people in. Of course they didn't send me a friendship request! The answers to the questions were 'Tell you later..". Something else very odd happened - they didn't show up on latest activity as new members ... they only showed up when my members started accepting the requests. One person spotted it as a scam and confronted them in their comments which is where I saw the problem. I've dealt with the two attempts to scam my members by banning them and broardcasting to my members about the scams and reminding them that if they get anything that is questionable they can refer it to me. Luckily my network is so small that it's almost impossible for me to miss new activity and I can deal with it quickly.
ps, IP will only work if it's static. Most ISPs assign dynamic. -
Inappropriate?I have had 4 people sitting in pending for a week cause (yes they DID answer the questions)... they didn't bother to change their avatar (lurker or spams seem to do this) so I emailed all 4 of them, as of Saturday night if not one emails me back they will all be denied.
