Minimum posts before links allowed?

[gogo]

Hi some forums only allow you to post links after a minimum number of posts, eg 15.

Not sure how helpful that is in deterring spammers if they just run around doing 14 me-too posts before spamming... but together with a time delay such as three days it might filter out some of them.

[Andres Kello]

Hi some forums only allow you to post links after a minimum number of posts, eg 15.

Not sure how helpful that is in deterring spammers if they just run around doing 14 me-too posts before spamming... but together with a time delay such as three days it might filter out some of them.I had looked into this a couple of weeks ago but vB doesn't seem to have a built-in feature that allows this (not sure why as it seems pretty basic). One thing I did a little while ago is establish a minimum post count for users to be able to use a Signature as often times spammers pretend to be normal people but with spam links in their signature.

We've also been testing out a new Anti-Spam feature that is built-into vB and scans every post. At first, it was producing too many false-positives, so I've now made it so that it only scans the posts of members with less than 10 posts so that regular members don't get hassled. It's already caught 2 of those video converter spams which never saw the light of day, so that's a good sign. We're going to continue testing it with the Mod team to determine whether to make it a permanent addition to Mobility or not. If it works well, it should go a long way towards cutting down most of the spam you see on Mobility (the Mod team will still have to work behind the scenes to delete and ban the spam that gets moderated, but you guys won't see them). Just keep in mind that no anti-spam system is 100% effective.

I'm going to continue to look into (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1771095#post1771095) the minimum post requirement for active links as that would be yet another weapon in our arsenal to keep Mobility clean.

[gogo]

Hi Andres

thanks for the info, good news there about the spam tester.

spam on this forum is low and it isn't disruptive, but the less the better and the less work for the mods to do.

[GijsZePa]

That should be pretty easy to hack in. Just open your links/addlink.php file and look for this code:
PHP Code:

if (!isset($_REQUEST['do']))
{
$_REQUEST['do'] = 'newlink';
}

Add this right below:
PHP Code:

if ($vbulletin->userinfo['posts'] < 20)
{
eval(standard_error('We are sorry, but you must have at least 20 posts in the forum before you will be allowed to submit links.'));
}


Martin (No vB guru, found this on the web)

[GijsZePa]

Other possible 'solution' :

"Just create a user group that can add links based on promotions that is based on post count... "

Gr,

Martin

[Andres Kello]

Good news, I've added a new Plugin (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=201285) to Mobility that allows me to control when users can post links (among several other things).

I've set the minimum post count to 10, so users with less than 10 posts will get an error message when trying to post a link, image, or e-mail address.

This, together with our current anti-spam feature (mentioned above), should virtually eliminate any and all spam on Mobility (I know the Mods will be particularly thrilled about this! :biggrin:).

Let's see how it goes...

[gogo]

Good news, I've added a new Plugin (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=201285) to Mobility that allows me to control when users can post links (among several other things).

I've set the minimum post count to 10, so users with less than 10 posts will get an error message when trying to post a link, image, or e-mail address.



Just now I was SEEING no links in sigs, just a message saying you can only see them after doing ten posts ( I wasn't signed in) - but if search engines also cannot see links in your signature your site won't benefit.

Is this permanent?

Also, for each removed link the message was repeated, taking up a lot of space.

[Andres Kello]

Just now I was SEEING no links in sigs, just a message saying you can only see them after doing ten posts ( I wasn't signed in) - but if search engines also cannot see links in your signature your site won't benefit.

Is this permanent?

Also, for each removed link the message was repeated, taking up a lot of space.I wasn't aware of that, thanks for letting me know as I definitely don't want that. Let me look into it.

[Andres Kello]

I wasn't aware of that, thanks for letting me know as I definitely don't want that. Let me look into it.Just fixed it, try it now.

[gogo]

Just fixed it, try it now.

Hi Andres it's fine now, back to normal, thanks.