URGENT! We need a way to report spam posts in Blender Community forums.
There have been a large number of "bot" posts advertising illegal activities in the these forums over the last week.
These highlight the need for people to report posts to an admin for moderation (and also possibly to hide reported posts until they are vetted).
14 Comments
We are aware of the issue and thinking on ways to quickly address this. Unfortunately the current system doesn't have a quick way to ban users, and the new Blender Community (which has this functionality) is still not finished yet.
Thanks for reporting, the best you can do to help is to vote down these posts so they don't show up. A vote of -1 points will already put it on the second page or close.
Hi! Spammer changed the bot strategy today, it put the content in comments. Still also posting articles. Putting a vote to -1 on the article help a little, but I've saw that the spammer try to use other fake accounts and vote up for their own spam article.
Once it's "hosted" on the community site, they will surely start a email spam campaign to use theses links.
Here are links to spam comments I've seen this morning:
blender.community/c/today/9Cfbbc/
blender.community/c/today/jDfbbc/
blender.community/c/today/vCfbbc/
blender.community/c/today/vCfbbc/
Blender being more popular, and the community site having almost no protection against abuse; it become attractive for them to use as a spam platform. Luckily, the site don't host files, as it could have hosted, porn content, and viruses|trojan.
Note: I might be wrong!! They still can upload pictures, and stuff (GraphicAll)!!! 😖
Hopefully, you will find a solution, and I really love the Blender community.
I'm really disappointed that theses spammers try to use the site to do their stuff...
EDIT: As a suggestion; You should not allow users with low or lower than 0 reputation to post articles and upload picture and build on the site. At least, uploading stuff...
It would be also nice to have users that have reputation more than 1000 being able to have "report as spam" button on articles and comments, so they could help the community by filtering that spam.
Once it's reported, the article would be hidden and if possible link inactive so it cannot be used in spam email. The site administrator could then decide or not to ban the user and or remove the spam flag on the article.
Today we've been removing posts and users manually in the database, we are working on a band-aid to make a quick button to do this. Good idea about using karma points for reporting or even limiting posting maybe for the time being until we get the new system up and running.
When we made the site 5 years ago we didn't think spam would be an issue, but hey, it's a sign that the community is growing! :)
* @Pablo Vazquez * I have -20 karma, but I think I deserve to post pictures because I'm not a spammer. Just because someone has low karma doesn't mean they're not trying to contribute to the community in a valuable way. I like the idea of a report button though.
* @BlenderSplendor * That would be an incitative to have people post cool stuff to the community and stay on the "good side" 😁 -20 Karma is not that bad, and I would never block you from posting pictures if you stay below -100. (My own opinion, as I don't know what the devs are planning)
As for the blocking, I have ideas of rules based on Karma: (Only suggestions) As the dev need to implement theses and define the rules... Theses rules should be tweakable by the site administrator (Admin control panel is there or is it all done by hand?)
-300 (and lower) Karma. Can't post anything on the site. Need to contact the admin to get better Karma points and justify the posts.
-100 (to -300) Karma. Can't post articles, but can post links. Cannot post comments.
100 to -100 Karma. Can post articles, post comments, but cannot upload builds to GraphicAll.
1000 and over Karma Can upload builds. Have access to the report spam button. The others could use the downvote button.
Details about the report as spam: A comment or article reported as spam would have the user lose 50 Karma points. If this button would be enabled for everybody could be used for "revenge" and that is not the idea about it.
A false spam report could be cancelled by the administrator and the person who reported would also lose karma.
NOTE: Theses are merely suggestions. The devs have already lot of work, and if they decide to implement following theses suggestion, It will be in a iterative way. (Starting with the most urgent, then adding more rules and process as time goes)
NOTE2:
I have some concerns for security... As Blender is getting more popular, we get the good stuff but there also the bad that come with it... 😣
As for the Build uploading: I've seen that some user have low Karma and uploaded builds... Perhaps something could be done to have better accommodations for them. (Perhaps issuing a warning before dowloading.)
In fact there should always be a warning, that you use the builds at your own risks. I wonder why there is none now. (Not seen any)
I would not like at all that a bad person, would create a Blender build with an integrated ransomware and that the Blender Institute would be pursued for this, because it was hosted on the community site.
Okay things should be a bit better now, we've banned these accounts and now have a faster way to do it.
* @Pablo Vazquez * Thanks for all the hard work Pablo! This is appreciated! 😊
* @Pablo Vazquez * Yes, thank you for all your hard work, Pablo! Sorry to trouble you, but I sorted feature requests by new and saw 40 abortion advertisements in a row. I had no idea we had such a problem with spam.
Proposed solution: Is there a way to detect if posts are >80% identical? As in the bulk of the post is exactly the same, but they changed a few words? Well, then duplicate posts & near-duplicate posts could be hidden automatically.
* @BlenderSplendor * That'd involve quite some logic. For the time being I've deleted those last posts you mentioned. That's the last bits of spam I think, if you find any other posts let us know. Thanks!
We can maybe have a slow mode. Maybe 20 min / 1 hour between posting two posts.
I'm really for it. These bots are really annoying!! 😩😤
Yes, REALLY URGENT. Today, a guy posted more than thousand messages. Please, find a solution. Maybe put some guys as moderator ? BTW huge thanks to the team, you're awesome.
Just as a headsup, if I request edge sliding for multiple vertices going in opposite directions - not just in the same direction as we have now - ie scaling them with an edge constraint ... multiple (many) times, I'm not a bot.
* @yogisemail2020 * Their spam isn't identical anymore, so detecting partially identical posts wouldn't solve the problem. Also, banning them won't solve the problem if they can just make a new account. The spam is coming from many accounts. I wonder what their motive is... slowing down Blender development?