Logged in to the forum this morning and is this what happens when you only make routes in three countries
these have all been deleted now. Thanks to those who reported them using the forum tools. Raised with the DTL team to see if there's anything we can do to prevent this kind of thing happening again (we do have spam filters as standard, but it appears some of these know how to get around them).
Maybe posting privileges should only be given after a certain period of time or after a certain amount of comments have been made (like some other boards)? Edit: Or at the very least a restriction from posting multiple posts within a set period of time in the same board.
If a 'time ban' is imposed on new users, these bots will just wait it out, but the 'allowed number of posts" restriction for new users could be a good one that shouldn't bother new users too much. Be aware though that bots are getting really smart (and will become exponentially smarter with AI joining the game), so I guess we'll see quite some innovation on security possibilities in the near future
Well, we already have the ones that copy-paste other users' old comments to new threads, thus building up a posting history to appear legit. I report any that I see, but likely miss some due to not being interested in some threads. I am pretty sure that system was designed to get around just this sort of precaution. But at least they can be spotted before they've got to that point.
Hey folks - in the interest of encouraging discussion about the game in this forum, moving this to 'Off-Topic' now. Thanks once again for flagging.
If I remember correctly, my 1st post (or 2 posts) on the board needed to be approved. This however will filter out only some of the spam, not everything. Something like this didn't really work already 10 years ago on a board I was a moderator & admin, where first 2 posts and after changes 5 posts of a new member needed to be approved manually. Changing from 2 to 5 and installing antispam plugin only reduced the amount of spam significantly, but did not eliminate it completely. Somebody can always write something sensible and on topic in their 1st posts for the new member they created, and then connect a spambot to it that will try to create a new thread every minute (or something). I don't think 10 years ago a spambot could answer correctly a question which only people really interested in topic of the forum knew the answer while registering, but they did register anyway.
Oh we all remember that member from the CCP he was patriotic a little bit too much and everything was bad except if the route is based in China, a funny guy gone too soon
