FAITHLIFE please let's do something about the spammers

Keith Pang said:

They are constantly coming up each day it seems like now. There has to be a way to stop this

Keith, What type of solution are you suggesting? FL clears the spam ASAP. I think this is all we can expect. But, maybe I'm wrong.

Beloved said:

Keith Pang said:

They are constantly coming up each day it seems like now. There has to be a way to stop this

Keith, What type of solution are you suggesting? FL clears the spam ASAP. I think this is all we can expect. But, maybe I'm wrong.

FL could switch to a more secure forum software like vBulletin, or alternatively Simple Machines. I ran a vBullitin forum for 10 years, and it keeps the spammers out. Period!

This forum runs on PHPBB forum software, which is notoriously insecure. It has minimal protection against spammers. The only really secure way to use PHPBB and keep the spammers out is to set it to require each and every user signup to go through a moderation process. And even then it isn't infallible. The spam bots used today have AI, and can imitate a real person quite easily. 

Don Awalt said:

This has been company policy ever since FL moved to this forum software, and maybe earlier - nothing is to get in the way of a possible new customer stumbling into the forums and getting engaged or asking a question easily and quickly, ESPECIALLY if they are someone considering a FL purchase. Given that, they do a pretty good job of reacting to spam when it hits. When the automated bots drop dozens of messages a minute in, that's when we are likely to see them. It is the reason I no longer receive posts via email, which has cut back my awareness of activity and participation on the forums, because unfortunately FL's process of manually deleting many of the spam leaves the email notification of all these spam messages untouched - many a time I woke up in the morning to find my inbox completely filled with pages of spam. FL knows about that problem and won't do anything about it, because they can't given the policy restrictions.

We all know there are many ways this could be stopped. I am sure I am not alone in frequenting other forums, and none have the spam problem that FL has, even though they work hard to minimize it. But as long as the quest for a potential new customer is priority over existing user forum experience, this will really never change. Short of a revolution like the protest the change in Logos Now precipitated, FL won't change their philosophy - at least they haven't over the last 5 years or so.

vBullitin requires no moderation on new signups. Hence, FL's policy of not inconveniencing the new user to the site would be satisfied. vBullitin menages to keep out the spammers because it has superior security coding than PHPBB. Now, I can understand them not wanting to switch to vBullitin. It is expensive, whereas PHPBB is Open Source, and therefore free.

However, there are plenty of free forum software solutions that have superior security coding than PHPBB. I mentioned one above - Simple Machines. That has a reputation for working almost as effectively as vBullitin, but remains Open Source and free. 

The only "real" obstacle to FL switching to a new forum software that I can see is the amount of effort it would take to port the existing database to the new software. And then designing a new template which FL are happy with. Those are not inconsequential things. However, the up-side is that the user experience is greatly improved when the bots are kept out.

Ultimately, it comes down to a trade-off: inconvenience over increased user satisfaction. 

Perhaps, forum users would be willing to pay a nominal subscription rate to see improved experience [:P]

How about users being given enough privilege to delete spam ourselves. Not sure if this would be possible but giving limited ability to long term uses could nip the problem in the bud as it were ?

Dave Thawley said:

How about users being given enough privilege to delete spam ourselves. Not sure if this would be possible but giving limited ability to long term uses could nip the problem in the bud as it were ?

That's the next logical step: engage volunteer forum moderators. It's what every large forum does. Loyal and trusted users are not hard to find. The only thing that surprises me about that is why it hasn't happened before now.

Beloved said:

Perhaps, forum users would be willing to pay a nominal subscription rate to see improved experience 

Stop cussing at your brothers and sisters. [:)] [:)] [:)]

Logos NOW/Connect, Okay, we have accepted that as being a paid for benefit. Paying for a forum or blog, ohhh nooooo. [:)]

I would have said "cursing", but that would be a little extreme.

Floyd Johnson said:

Be sure to use the "Report Abuse" selection under the "More" tab - you won't see your report on the forum, but you will receive an automated reply from FaithLife indicating that they received your report. 

In fact, this possibly also needs improvement.

Current steps to report abuse:

1. Click on "More"
2. Click on "Report Abuse"
3. Fill in subject
4. Fill in body
5. Post
6. Receive an email for every single report [:|]

Surely this workflow can be refined to require, say, just one click?

(PS: Just think about it - it requires significantly more time for me to report a post than it is for a spammer to post spam [at a rate of >10/min])

Beloved said:

DAL said:

I just hope only the forums are this vulnerable and not the actual website where all our information is stored

Come to think of it DAL, I had recent unauthorized use of my credit card and this is a possible explanation for it. I have removed my credit card information in response. Thanks for your observation. 

Bradley Grainger (Faithlife) said:

Francis said:

The credit card information is only stored on their website, not our devices.

It's not even stored on our website: when you enter a credit card number into logos.com, it's immediately transmitted to a secure, third-party payment management company, then immediately deleted from our systems. (So even if logos.com was hacked, your payment information would never be exposed.)