RoboSavvy Forum

Re: Suggestions to the Site

2013-10-03T11:58:32+01:00

Hi Pedro,

All sounds good.

I have a PM for you in my Outbox... It's still sitting there.

File Manager shows no files...

Thanks,
Paul

Statistics: Posted by PaulL — Thu Oct 03, 2013 11:58 am

Re: Suggestions to the Site

2013-10-02T12:31:41+01:00

Hi Paul

We're now preparing a plan to address this.
The first line of defense will be that:
- you can submit a post and must wait for it to be approved before you can submit a new one.
- in other words; if you have posts pending approval you can't submit new ones.

We're moderating the first posts so this shouldn't throttle people down too much but will definitely reduce the silly amount of spam we got.
The other thing is adding a "Disapprove and Ban" button.

From the experience I've gathered with the spam attacks we've had, throttling measures are really helpful for moderators; we assumed approving posts would solve all problems but it clearly seems throttling measures are still needed!

Regarding the Private Message and your File Manager can you let us know if that's working now? I didn't really get your PM so I just wanted to double check if it's a bug so that we track it down.

Thank you very much for your feedback and your help.

Kind Regards
Pedro

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Wed Oct 02, 2013 12:31 pm

Re: Suggestions to the Site

2013-10-02T11:55:14+01:00

Yeah, they're quite prolific. It's a shame they don't realize they're getting nothing from their efforts.

What I was doing was "Select All" at the bottom, then Disapprove for the whole page full. It was easier to "mark all" and visually scan for valid posts and uncheck those than to put a check on each spam post. I could go through 5 or so pages in a matter of minutes. They do certain things that make it easier to visually skip them.

I just went back about 5 pages looking for valid posts, found none. I left them, but it's easier to go through when setting to Disapprove if it helps. The bigger issue is banning IP's / accounts!!

Thanks,
Paul

Statistics: Posted by PaulL — Wed Oct 02, 2013 11:55 am

Re: Suggestions to the Site

2013-09-30T16:52:18+01:00

Well, I can really see the extent of the issue now that I've looked at the moderation queue....

For now, the best I can suggest - and to be honest we're sincerely relying on the moderators help until a new webmaster is in - just focus on approving valid posts.

Leave the "bad" posts as unapproved. As "unapproved" they're basically harmless; they're just annoying and confusing from a UI perspective.
We don't yet have an efficient tool to do these mass Disapprovals and bans but as long as they're left "unapproved" they won't show up anywhere. We'll eventually move into automatically pruning all those old unapproved posts.

Again we greatly appreciate all the moderators' help and once we get a new webmaster in, I'll personally see that this is his top priority.

Kind Regards
Pedro

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:52 pm

Re: Suggestions to the Site

2013-09-30T16:24:35+01:00

Hi

Thank you for your post and suggestion.

Unfortunately our webmaster had to suddenly leave last week due to a severe health problem, so we have no webmaster now.

One of the items in his "to-do" list was to add a "Disapprove and Ban" button on the Moderator view.
I assume this wasn't completed.

He was also assigned to fix your issues with the File Manager which I'm not sure how it stands at the moment...

I do apologize for this. Let me look into what we can do about this (until a new webmaster comes) and I'll let you know.

Again, our apologies.

Kind Regards
Pedro.

PS: I do not seem to have received your PM. Can you confirm it was sent to me? (I hope it's not a new bug...)

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Mon Sep 30, 2013 4:24 pm

Re: Suggestions to the Site

2013-09-28T09:45:08+01:00

Hey Pedro,

Sent you a PM - also, I see LOTS of spam accounts - hundreds of new messages a day, many from the same accounts - what's the best route to do a ban / block on a user? If there was a "suggest to ban", that'd be nice. I can moderate posts and such, but much of the garbage that shows up comes from accounts that clearly should be blocked (along with their IP?). Ex, "newserversta", that one and a number of other spam accounts should be banned.

While we're on the topic, does phpBB support a moderator forum like vBulletin? I'm a big fan of vBulletin - I used to be SuperAdmin on a pretty good sized board until I left that hobby (RC boating - moved away from a lake in the back yard - fun hobby, though) - helped them with db problems, forum upgrades, etc. CNCZone uses vBulletin, so does RCGroups...

Thanks,
Paul

Statistics: Posted by PaulL — Sat Sep 28, 2013 9:45 am

Suggestions to the Site

2013-07-02T10:41:19+01:00

I've now added the word mentioned.

What we find though, is that as we censor each word, spammers come up with a different way of spelling it.

Anyway, the new forum will hopefully be up soon with the new moderation system (I'm finalizing my end of the tasks today hopefully) so everything should be coming together soon.

Best Regards,
Pedro.

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Tue Jul 02, 2013 10:41 am

Suggestions to the Site

2013-07-02T09:17:06+01:00

Well, I think you might want to add (removed by spam filter) to the mix, that's what I've seen on the 4 or so posts I've deleted recently.

Statistics: Posted by PaulL — Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:17 am

Suggestions to the Site

2013-06-27T19:03:15+01:00

Robotis has a very interesting kit, Bioloid Premium

http://robosavvy.com/store/product_info ... cts_id/600

But, if you want a cheap "kit" there are several from Dongu:

http://robosavvy.com/store/index.php?ma ... rers_id=35

Lego Mindstorms is also a very good option.

By the way, General is a better place to post these questions:

http://robosavvy.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1

Statistics: Posted by siempre.aprendiendo — Thu Jun 27, 2013 7:03 pm

Suggestions to the Site

2013-06-27T18:28:54+01:00

Hi everybody! I'm a recently-discovered robot enthusiast! Could you hobbyists out there tell me which companies to purchase robotics from? Thank you

Statistics: Posted by robotlover17 — Thu Jun 27, 2013 6:28 pm

Suggestions to the Site

2013-06-19T12:41:02+01:00

It will be great to have more moderators, then we can clean up quicker. Also manual approval will be possible with more moderators and I hope not be too frustrating for valid new members due to delay.

The "Latest Forum Posts" seems to update after 30 minutes or so. If you can clean spam quickly, it never comes up there. However deleting spam will also take time before deleting the entry in the "Latest Forum Posts" box.

To avoid spammers using initial good posts to gain status, I also tend to delete posts which are just " Hi" or even compliments posts if they are not on current topics and the poster is not a member I know. Also look out for posts which are just cut and paste of previous posts on same topic, often with a URL added.

Statistics: Posted by i-Bot — Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:41 pm

Suggestions to the Site

2013-06-19T11:18:41+01:00

Thanks, Pedro - Bye Bye SPAM!!

Statistics: Posted by PaulL — Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:18 am

Suggestions to the Site

2013-06-19T10:55:48+01:00

Hi all

Sorry for the late reply.

We sincerely appreciate your availability for helping in moderating the forum.

I've asked the webmaster to add the three of you as moderators so you should have Moderator rights shortly.

We're also working to move the forum upgrade up in our list of priorities so that we can put in place new anti spam measures.

One that's definitely going to happen is manual approved of the first posts of new users. (all subsequent posts are automatically approved after manually clearing[approving] the first ones)

Regards
Pedro

Statistics: Posted by PedroR — Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:55 am

Suggestions to the Site

2013-06-15T13:09:14+01:00

... I wouldn't mind deleting spam, either.

Statistics: Posted by PaulL — Sat Jun 15, 2013 1:09 pm

Suggestions to the Site

2013-06-15T12:54:04+01:00

I also love to delete spam!

Statistics: Posted by siempre.aprendiendo — Sat Jun 15, 2013 12:54 pm