NationStates

Given an increasing amount of spam by a certain IP range, I am thinking that we should find a way to restrict posting on the forums to older nations, if at least temporarily. I'd reckon that since that nation is always new, I think a good way to keep them out would be to restrict new nations' ability to access the forums by only allowing nations who have been here for longer than six months to join the forums.

This would have the effect of keeping those who are only here to wreak havoc on the forums out, and it would force any determined spammer to wait for a very long time which would make it less likely that these sorts of things would occur. Having it be temporary would also ensure that new nations with a legitimate reason to go on the forums (i.e. any reason but to spam the forums) would not be inconvenienced for as long as my idea would take.

I don’t think this would really change anything, given that spammers still could wait that long to do their dirty deeds which are done dirt cheap.

I semi agree. 6 months though is way too long though. Perhaps reaching 10 million In pop, or finishing at least 10 issues? Having it being a population barrier seems like the best bet, like how the capital city and other custom settings are.

Forum 7 should still be open to all anyway. That is the spam forum.

Luziyca wrote:Given an increasing amount of spam by a certain IP range, I am thinking that we should find a way to restrict posting on the forums to older nations, if at least temporarily. I'd reckon that since that nation is always new, I think a good way to keep them out would be to restrict new nations' ability to access the forums by only allowing nations who have been here for longer than six months to join the forums.

This would have the effect of keeping those who are only here to wreak havoc on the forums out, and it would force any determined spammer to wait for a very long time which would make it less likely that these sorts of things would occur. Having it be temporary would also ensure that new nations with a legitimate reason to go on the forums (i.e. any reason but to spam the forums) would not be inconvenienced for as long as my idea would take.

6 months? That would stop quite a few people from posting who wouldn't do anything wrong.

Maybe a limit to how many dispatches you can create as well - not in pure numbers, but the rate. It would not do as much, I will admit, but at least it will help curtail or slow it down.

Getting assaulted by 100+ dispatches and tagging me inside is... not fun.

The American Anarchist Empire wrote:

Luziyca wrote:Given an increasing amount of spam by a certain IP range, I am thinking that we should find a way to restrict posting on the forums to older nations, if at least temporarily. I'd reckon that since that nation is always new, I think a good way to keep them out would be to restrict new nations' ability to access the forums by only allowing nations who have been here for longer than six months to join the forums.

This would have the effect of keeping those who are only here to wreak havoc on the forums out, and it would force any determined spammer to wait for a very long time which would make it less likely that these sorts of things would occur. Having it be temporary would also ensure that new nations with a legitimate reason to go on the forums (i.e. any reason but to spam the forums) would not be inconvenienced for as long as my idea would take.

6 months? That would stop quite a few people from posting who wouldn't do anything wrong.

Maybe the mods could do an evaluation of their posts, on and off forum, and if they were blatantly spammy, then they would get a ban/DEAT.

It would reduce spam in the forums but what if a new nation was created and they want to see what the forums is like and they want to be apart of it? Well they can’t post anything because they have to be here for 6 months even if their not a spammer.

Luziyca wrote:Given an increasing amount of spam by a certain IP range, I am thinking that we should find a way to restrict posting on the forums to older nations, if at least temporarily. I'd reckon that since that nation is always new, I think a good way to keep them out would be to restrict new nations' ability to access the forums by only allowing nations who have been here for longer than six months to join the forums.

This would have the effect of keeping those who are only here to wreak havoc on the forums out, and it would force any determined spammer to wait for a very long time which would make it less likely that these sorts of things would occur. Having it be temporary would also ensure that new nations with a legitimate reason to go on the forums (i.e. any reason but to spam the forums) would not be inconvenienced for as long as my idea would take.

I agree partially, but some new nations might go to the forums to request flags, maps, etc. I do know where you are getting this from *cough cough F7 nono adult imagery cough cough*, but there will be those times where the spammers will be patient enough to wait six months.

Al-Jaqquar wrote:I semi agree. 6 months though is way too long though. Perhaps reaching 10 million In pop, or finishing at least 10 issues? Having it being a population barrier seems like the best bet, like how the capital city and other custom settings are. Forum 7 should still be open to all anyway. That is the spam forum.

I feel having a month limit (six months, for what it is worth, is about the time it takes to get from five million to either 500 million or a billion, I'm not entirely sure) is much easier to code on the techies' part than an explicit population barrier or how many issues you've answered before accessing the forums.

Though come to think of it, six months might be a bit harsh, as the negatives of having fewer newcomers use the forums would most certainly outweigh the benefits of fewer forum spammers. Maybe three months might get the job done just as effectively without scaring off as many newcomers with legitimate reasons to use the forums compared to six months, but not letting in as many spammers as say, a one month restriction on newcomers.

Goraria wrote:It would reduce spam in the forums but what if a new nation was created and they want to see what the forums is like and they want to be apart of it? Well they can’t post anything because they have to be here for 6 months even if their not a spammer.

You can still view the forums even though you can't post on it if you're not logged in. You can learn the culture before participating in it fully.

Why should we punish all the legitimate new users who want to participate on the forums just because of one or two dipshits?

Why should I be punished for being a new nation?

I agree with a one month cooling off period before new nations can post.

Gandoor wrote:Why should we punish all the legitimate new users who want to participate on the forums just because of one or two dipshits?

Because it'll weed out most of the dipshits: the only ones who would pass through that waiting period would almost certainly be those who will later commit suicide-by-mod.

Gandoor wrote:Why should we punish all the legitimate new users who want to participate on the forums just because of one or two dipshits?

Because those dipshits are punching way above their weight class right now, and it's making the forums practically unusable for everyone else.

It seems really unfair that new nations are punished for 2 or 3 peoples actions.

IMO I think it would be a better idea to limit it to two months instead and restrict only to users who have verified email addresses.

Sure, they could use disposable email addresses, but the solution could be that th forums don't allow disposable emails like the WA. Unless they have hundreds of hotmail, gmail, etc. accounts it would be easy to bypass. Additionally, they could blacklist email addresses that have already been used.

Unfortunately yes, this would affect a chunk of the players who aren't willing or don't have an email address to put on their account, so maybe this idea would be scrapped altogether.

I think 6 months is perhaps a little too long. I'd say 2 months instead (excluding forum 7). Based off my observations of new nations there are countless players who create accounts, play for a few days, go into vacation mode, then CTE'd 60 days after that. And I think a similar principle applies to the causal spammers/trolls. Most would lose interest after a month or so and just go onto the next thing and those that do remain should be far smaller in number and more manageable. Another possibility is limiting the number of possible posts for new nations and that gradually increases overtime until it eventually becomes unlimited a few months in. I think 6 months is too harsh for people who wouldn't do anything wrong but some system needs to be in place to stop spammers with new nations. Correct me if I am mistaken but to submit an issue idea you already need to have had the account for X amount of time so it's kind of already there just not for forums.

This seems like there is a high chance it would penalise and disadvantage legitimate players, at little loss to the spammers (as it would disrupt the site's function without them even being online).

If the problem is new nations posting a large number of these threads and making a large amount of new nations to do so, simply throttling the number of nations and posts that can be made by one person within a specific period seems like it should be a possible way to avoid disadvantaging players and changing the whole site for a tiny minority.

6 months? I wouldn't be able to post for 3 more days.

The American Anarchist Empire wrote:It seems really unfair that new nations are punished for 2 or 3 peoples actions.

Maybe if those people weren't making the forums unusable for hours at a time, I would not need to suggest this in the first place.

Mekanikus wrote:IMO I think it would be a better idea to limit it to two months instead and restrict only to users who have verified email addresses.

Sure, they could use disposable email addresses, but the solution could be that th forums don't allow disposable emails like the WA. Unless they have hundreds of hotmail, gmail, etc. accounts it would be easy to bypass. Additionally, they could blacklist email addresses that have already been used.

Unfortunately yes, this would affect a chunk of the players who aren't willing or don't have an email address to put on their account, so maybe this idea would be scrapped altogether.

When I was much younger, I was unable to participate in many forums that required an email address before you could post. While it may be a good idea, I do kind of think it would hinder the ability of those with no email accounts for whatever reason to use the forums legitimately, and I do imagine some spammer would get around that with little trouble at all.

Mekanikus wrote:IMO I think it would be a better idea to limit it to two months instead and restrict only to users who have verified email addresses.

Sure, they could use disposable email addresses, but the solution could be that th forums don't allow disposable emails like the WA. Unless they have hundreds of hotmail, gmail, etc. accounts it would be easy to bypass. Additionally, they could blacklist email addresses that have already been used.

Unfortunately yes, this would affect a chunk of the players who aren't willing or don't have an email address to put on their account, so maybe this idea would be scrapped altogether.

I'm not saying that that this idea wouldn't be good, but unless Max has changed his mind in the past few years, he doesn't want players to have to enter their email address to access the forums.

Source: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=251344&p=15463977#p15463977

(Also I feel like most of what these dipshits are doing is just trying to DDOS the forums and not coming in and spamming them, I know there are the porn/gore spammers but blocking new users from posting even at all won't stop DDOSing)

The Free Joy State wrote:This seems like there is a high chance it would penalise and disadvantage legitimate players, at little loss to the spammers (as it would disrupt the site's function without them even being online).

If the problem is new nations posting a large number of these threads and making a large amount of new nations to do so, simply throttling the number of nations and posts that can be made by one person within a specific period seems like it should be a possible way to avoid disadvantaging players and changing the whole site for a tiny minority.

I agree with this. I haven’t even been around for 2 months, and I feel like this would be unfair. Why not limit the amount of new accounts per IP address instead?

Would it be possible to restrict new nations to only be able to post on Moderation and Technical (perhaps Got Issues too/instead of Moderation)? ie. the forums where they need to go for their Game-related questions.

I'm not too big a fan of any restriction myself, so minimizing impact would be good.

The Free Joy State wrote:This seems like there is a high chance it would penalise and disadvantage legitimate players, at little loss to the spammers (as it would disrupt the site's function without them even being online).

If the problem is new nations posting a large number of these threads and making a large amount of new nations to do so, simply throttling the number of nations and posts that can be made by one person within a specific period seems like it should be a possible way to avoid disadvantaging players and changing the whole site for a tiny minority.

Correct. Also This gives true new players that struggle to find their way into the community and be seriously treated as respected, this feature probably brings insults and flaming directed at new players because people just falsely assumes that new players are new spammers.

Luziyca wrote:

The American Anarchist Empire wrote:It seems really unfair that new nations are punished for 2 or 3 peoples actions.

Maybe if those people weren't making the forums unusable for hours at a time, I would not need to suggest this in the first place.

Mekanikus wrote:IMO I think it would be a better idea to limit it to two months instead and restrict only to users who have verified email addresses.

Sure, they could use disposable email addresses, but the solution could be that th forums don't allow disposable emails like the WA. Unless they have hundreds of hotmail, gmail, etc. accounts it would be easy to bypass. Additionally, they could blacklist email addresses that have already been used.

Unfortunately yes, this would affect a chunk of the players who aren't willing or don't have an email address to put on their account, so maybe this idea would be scrapped altogether.

When I was much younger, I was unable to participate in many forums that required an email address before you could post. While it may be a good idea, I do kind of think it would hinder the ability of those with no email accounts for whatever reason to use the forums legitimately, and I do imagine some spammer would get around that with little trouble at all.

1 month restriction is ideal, I agree. I do not like the idea of new users being inconvenienced by restrictions, but there has to be measures taken so we actually have a board to use.