Moving to a new forum?

General discussion about the game.
marksteele
Posts: 48
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:32 pm

Moving to a new forum?

Post by marksteele »

So as many of you have noticed the spam bots are beginning to get rather out of control on these forums. It's been going on for a while and there doesn't seem to be any active admins or moderators to help kill them off. Basically I want to suggest that if nothing gets done in a week or so we may want to consider moving to an unofficial forum for all our main activities like modding. This would make it simpler on many levels as we can have a team of active staff killing off bots and we can also set up a section for modding and modding support. I would be more then happy to put some money together to grab a URL and basic webhost (although if we get a lot of traffic I might need some donations to help out).

Personally I'm hoping that the devs and admins are just taking a short, congratulatory, break and they will be back online soon but we do have to consider other options.

edit: guess in theory this should have gone in off-topic but it does involve FTL so...eh

edit: Would like to thank boa13 for their reply about whats going on, it seems the mods are quite active on the forums (their just pro-ninjas :P (I thought they had green names or something)). Scroll down for some stats. It seems the game is popular enough that the spam is not in the form of bots but actual workers, so it makes it harder to track. They also mentioned that the request for a sub-section for modding has been heard however the admins are currently working on bug fixing. Ideally we won't have to wait too much longer all :)
Last edited by marksteele on Wed Sep 26, 2012 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
SSk77
Posts: 57
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 8:09 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by SSk77 »

I agree with you those bots are just freaking everything up :@
This bot called "stranger" just posted on topics of the beta version :/
Also if you want, I'm active and could be one of the unofficial forum moderators.

EDIT: For a temporarily forum I don't think we need a domain... At least on the start of it.
marksteele
Posts: 48
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 3:32 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by marksteele »

mmm that's true, so ya on the the first of October if nothings been done I'll set up the forum and link it. I'll try and get it as close to this forum as possible.
icepick
Posts: 340
Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2012 11:18 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by icepick »

The spambots come and go. The devs do take care of it as it crops up. They'll be putting in some more anti-spambot measures soonish.
Baby Fark McGee-zax
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Sep 23, 2012 4:21 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by Baby Fark McGee-zax »

Is there a purpose to these spam bots?

I mean, what do they achieve? They don't always seem to selling something.

They seem like they're just auto conversation bots with no life.

Fitting for some forums but not ours. :lol:
Icehawk78
Posts: 230
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:55 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by Icehawk78 »

SSk77 wrote:For a temporarily forum I don't think we need a domain... At least on the start of it.
If needed/desired, I have my own domain name already that I could create a subdomain off of in the short term.
Whale Cancer
Posts: 272
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:28 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by Whale Cancer »

Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed there isn't more mod involvement in the forums. The need for a modding specific subforum has been bandied about for a while, for instance.

As for these bots, there should be more stringent registration control. Not all forums have this problem. Also, wouldn't hurt to have a few janitors (whose only power would be to delete this sort of stuff).
Contribute to help save the Whales from their various diseases! *DELAYED* Should release the skeleton with the main quests attached by the end of the week (By NOV 9)! *DELAYED* Don't listen to my dates! Things always seem to come up!
boa13
Posts: 808
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:42 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by boa13 »

Hey guys, some information about that. :)

First, it's not out of control. Over the past few days, 56 spammer accounts have been banned, 124 spam posts and 75 spam threads have been deleted. These figures include a lot of spam and spammers that had accumulated since the release of the game and that have now been cleaned. Currently, there are about 5 spam accounts created per day, resulting in about 30 spams in the forums per day.

Second, moving to a new forum is unlikely to change the situation.

We are not dealing with spam bots, but with spam workers. People whose sole income is being paid to spend their days manually spamming forums. Some barely speak English, others are smarter, they imitate normal forum discussion and include spam links in their signatures. Some work alone from home, others work in teams, with managers and performance objectives. Most post three messages at most, and then go to other forums or create new accounts. A few inundate the forum with 25 messages at once, that was the most recent case.

Spam does not come to forums by chance or by mistake. Spammers monitor Google search results, hot topics in the news, web site rankings, and try to place their links on any site that has a modicum of success. It is no surprise that they arrived in force at the time FTL was released. Their purpose is generally to increase the Google rank of the advertised websites, so it does not matter much if the text is gibberish or if you don't click the link; what matters is that the Google Bot is fooled a little bit, and the advertised website ends up higher in Google Search results.

Unfortunately, as many of you have noted, this forum skin lacks a report button. The best thing you can do when you spot spam is leave it alone (do not reply to it, do not quote it), and see if it goes away by itself (currently the forum is cleaned two to three times per day). In particularly egregious cases, or if you just feel like it, you can also send me a PM with a link to the post itself (right-click on the post title to get the URL) and/or the username of the spammer (which I can use to remove his other posts).
Forum janitor — If you spot spam, PM me the URL and/or the username of the spammer.
I have powers, moderator powers. I am not keen on using them, but will do so if needed.
froz
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2012 9:30 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by froz »

Oh, so there are mods in this forum. Good to know. Could you create a separate category (subforum) for game modifications? They are really lost now in this section, between regular feedback and spammers.
boa13
Posts: 808
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:42 pm

Re: Moving to a new forum?

Post by boa13 »

Well, the spammers have been removed, that leaves only regular feedback. ;)

Only the forum administrators (the authors of FTL) can create new sub-forums. They are aware of the request, but currently have their hands full with FTL 1.02, technical support, etc.
Forum janitor — If you spot spam, PM me the URL and/or the username of the spammer.
I have powers, moderator powers. I am not keen on using them, but will do so if needed.
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