filter new messages based on content, links

[sdetweil]

one of the sites I moderate uses NodeBB.. we are constantly getting spam posts.

we have turned off entry of any of the profile data that could contain links, and stopped the about me content.
added reputation checking to fill out those fields.. hurts valid new users, but not much we can do

but still it persists... one common theme of all the posts is to link to some external content which is unrelated to the
thing we discuss.. they all want to advertise their stuff..

is there a message filter that checks links in messages against an allow list? , github, our site, some image poster sites maybe
reject message if not accepted link address... I want to be able to edit the list without having site admin (which I don't)

trying NOT to impact good new users. the bad posts are all coming from 1st time posters. (who just registered)

[crazycells]

@sdetweil said in filter new messages based on content, links:

one of the sites I moderate uses NodeBB.. we are constantly getting spam posts.

we have turned off entry of any of the profile data that could contain links, and stopped the about me content.
added reputation checking to fill out those fields.. hurts valid new users, but not much we can do

but still it persists... one common theme of all the posts is to link to some external content which is unrelated to the
thing we discuss.. they all want to advertise their stuff..

is there a message filter that checks links in messages against an allow list? , github, our site, some image poster sites maybe
reject message if not accepted link address... I want to be able to edit the list without having site admin (which I don't)

trying NOT to impact good new users. the bad posts are all coming from 1st time posters. (who just registered)

we have similar problems... not the answer you want, but it might help... we use the "map" plugin to deal with this...

GitHub - NodeBB-Community/nodebb-plugin-osm-map

Contribute to NodeBB-Community/nodebb-plugin-osm-map development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub (github.com)

we were also preventing users from filling "about me" or "signature" sections based on reputation, but since this was hurting real users rather than spam ones, we backed out from this...

for new users, the reputation requirement is "2" to be able to post without post queue approval, it was 1 previously, but with growing number of moderators, we raised it to 2... We immediately delete those posts that are from bots, and they do not visit the forum twice anyways...

Fortunately, all of these bot or ad. users are coming from the same two countries we have modified the registration page to include "location" info during the registration, and this made the "map plugin" a very easy way to detect bot users...

Every now and then, I check our map and detect those bots very easily and delete their account... Alternatively, you can delete their location info and inappropriate content from their profile and leave it like that... so they cannot register again using the same email address or username...

[sdetweil]

@crazycells thanks.. we have users from all over the world.. get hundreds of registrations a day, sometimes
10 posts a day with trash content.

limiting profile data has cut down on registrations..

this plugin proves I can check the links..

GitHub - barisusakli/nodebb-plugin-linkcheck: Checks if links are dead in posts.

Checks if links are dead in posts. Contribute to barisusakli/nodebb-plugin-linkcheck development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub (github.com)

but I don't see a hook position for rejecting a post altogether..

i don't want to CHANGE the content, I want to BLOCK/PREVENT the content from reaching the system completely
hm.. askimet does this (incorrectly a lot of the time) .. will have to look

everyday I ban accounts, and delete their posts. just tired of chasing everyday

[phenomlab]

@sdetweil If you know where in the world the spammers originate from and you use Cloudflare, you can GEO block them ? Failing that, anyone with a reputation of say, less than 2 should be subject to the post queue so that an admin or mod can review it before allowing it to be published.

Admittedly, that doesn't actually stop a spammer from posting, but it does prevent others in the forum from seeing it.

Another way around woul dbe tro use something like hCaptcha on the registration page to prevent sudo bot registrations.

[sdetweil]

@phenomlab thanks. we don't have a post mediation queue, trying not to go there..

[phenomlab]

@sdetweil understood, but you could impose that only for new accounts with no reputation. I do the same on my own forum.

[sdetweil]

@phenomlab thanks.. I have the plugin working..

turn on moderation, set limit for reputation and number of posts. this will catch all those posts

now, given a list of typical first user links our site, github, ...

bypass moderation.. if no links or no links outside the list.

otherwise into moderation as the default.

now to build the admin for managing the list of 'good' urls
now to learn ANOTHER language.. tpl.. ugh