hello all

as many of the members (sarcasm noted) may have noticed we've been inundated with problems with spammers over the last...well...ages

i am now an admin and we as a team as well as the moderators have been having a discussion with what to do about the problem and so i've implemented a few things i'd like you to know about.

i've removed cinephiliacs from 2 of the lesser known spiderbots which i'm not entirely convinced were helping us out anyway

i've taken to banning individual members for an infinite number of days effectively limiting any spammers to only 1 post

i now ban these people by IP address that is specific to them

i also blanket ban IP addresses from similar domains as spammers using a wildcard banning system

i am currently trawling through the masses of spam threads in the recycle bin forum (which you as members dont see) and banning all the previously used IP's from there

i've made the general discussion forum new topics to have a clearance by moderators before they show up as this is where the vast majority of spamming is posted

i am now personally reviewing the "validating members" section in the admin control panel several times a day and deleting applications which i believe are spam bot registrations

i seriously hope this has an impact

failing all this, i've been discussing the situation with Omega and we may have to resort to switching from phpbb to vbulletin as it has more spam control measures

i know many people suggested making a limit on the number of posts before links could be posted but using what knowlege i have in the admin CP i cant find a way to do it...perhaps there is an add on but as yet i dont really have the computer knowhow to implement it without most likely fucking the entire board up

anyway..like i say...i hope these measures are having an impact and i hope you guys will start to post more regularly again because l know many of you felt that the board had been abandoned by the admin to its fate

this thread is to let you know that its now

i'd like to thank antonio montana and makeitstop for helping delete the masses of spam that we've been plagued with over the last many months

It was getting annoying, you guys did a great job keeping them at bay though. I was getting a little worried about the content of most of the spam, which can only have put potential new members off joining.

Personally I'm re-discovering my passion for the movies (it happens every six months or so), so I'll be posting lots more in the coming weeks I believe.

i think it's going to take a while to have full effect...i believe there is an auto verification system for new members that once they've been in the verification queue for a certain time then they automatically get allowed onto the board...some of the spam bots registered before i got my admin position and have yet to surface

i'll be honest though...behind the scenes there is still about 20 spam bots registering per day...but all the IP addresses and being put on the ban filter both in full and in part so as to stop spam not just directly but within certain networks that are registering

its a bastard of a job and it takes up alot of my time but i just dont want people thinking nothing is getting done about it

24 hours and no spam...woot

Great Job team! So far so good! if you need any assistance patroling cinephiliacs borders, I'm available

Just looked at the list of today's active users, and for the first time in a long time, the majority were real. Only one spambot. Woo-hoo!

yeah that's one of my measures of success in tackling the spambots..some do make visits but are unable to post indefinitely...others are recurring ones from a while back that i haven't yet banned or deleted

on average we're still getting about 4 registrations a day from spam bots but both the 2nd part of any dodgy email names after the @ get banned...and their IP's both in whole and in part get banned

it does seem to be working

Nice one. Well done's are deserved all round. Such a vast improvement.

cheers SEENOEVIL...good to see you around here again...

another update

the ban filters are finally beginning to kick in...especially those based on wildcard IP and emails....where as before everytime i visited to admin board to check the "validating members" section there would always be 3 or 4 spam bots registered and this would happen several times a day....we are now down to about 1 registration a day in total

i just hope i dont inadvertantly ban actual members by putting wildcard entries in the filter that partially match their IP's

excellent work bro

the more nosey members may well notice that over the next few weeks the number of members on the board with drop significantly

this is because all the spam, once it's deleted, ends up in the recycle bin that only mods and admin can see...it is currently sitting at about 85 pages with 17 threads per page

i'm now working my way back through all these pages of spam posters and adding their names, registering email and IP to the ban filters and then deleting the accounts

i think now that the new spam is coming under control then this is trying to get back to a clean slate...

it takes about half an hour per 2 pages of members so it will take a fair bit of time but so long as i delete more per day than are registering then we should be there soon enough

Thanks for your help with everything, you've made a huge improvement.

well...it seems the spam problem is well and truly under control...we havent a registration by a spam bot for about 5 days now

excellent work Anomaly

as you peeps well know i've been keeping on top of the spam...i just thought i'd share something i find funny...it's the spam bots that dont aren't even bothered to try and hide what they are....there's the prevalence of the names that dont actually spell anything

like

tskippptizz and the like

but the ones i always find funny, and how they think these names will ever get past validation...the latest one being the rather obvious

WorldTimeShareSeller

genius

well the final deed was done...all the sleeper accounts have been deleted...as well as all the accounts with 2 posts or less

before this action was taken there were some 4000 members

there are now 390....

goes to show you the extent of the spam bot registering problem

I know I really shouldn't laugh at that, but LOL!!!!

But seriously, nice going purging the scum! The dawn of a new, pure Cinephiliacs is upon us, and only the few righteous ones shall go on to the new world.

Good work, man!

Excellent...