Can low reputation users be prevented from necroposting?
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The Artificial “Intelligence” robots seem to be posting their messages several days after discussion among humans has concluded.
Does the forum software support not allowing someone to post a comment to a thread if their reputation is zero or below and it has been more than ten days since the last post on that thread?
Today the attempted AI posts were “about a month later”, “27 days later”, and “12 days later.”
The downside of the suggestion is that I have seen humans confused by the pop-ups that they can’t post due to a low reputation. Is it possible, rather than 100% blocking low-reputation users from necroposting, that they be given a Turing test?
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@mkupper ,
Unfortunately, that feature doesn’t exist in the NodeBB configuration, that I can find.
We might just have to give in and have a “post queue”, where first-time posters have to have their post reviewed/approved by one of the mods before it’s made public. I’ve been hesitant to turn that on, because it means more work for me and the other mods, but since the AI is getting more insistent, we might have to go there.
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@PeterJones said in Can low reputation users be prevented from necroposting?:
because it means more work for me and the other mods
Dare I say is it worth considering having a “by invitation” forum. So new users would apply and then be vetted (probably not much, just checking their ability to form sentences in a “non” AI manner).
I doubt this would take as much work as having to be constantly on the lookout for AI type posts. Additionally having that “lock” on the door may well keep potential AI’ers from even considering joining.
Terry
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@PeterJones ,
What I don’t understand, is how are they getting on to the forums to begin with?I mean, I sign on with my Google account, you have also the Github account possibility and what, Facebook also, so how is it possible that these trolls/bots are even allowed to post in forums that they haven’t signed in for? Turning off posting ability, if an option, for non-registered users, would seem to be the way to go, if it’s possible.
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@Lycan-Thrope said in Can low reputation users be prevented from necroposting?:
I sign on with my Google account, …, so how is it possible that these trolls/bots are even allowed to post in forums that they haven’t signed in for?
They have google (or similar) accounts. Despite Captcha, it’s not that hard (for example, in certain regions of the world, a paid job is to sit creating accounts all day on such providers, which then gives the bots something to work with).
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@PeterJones said in Can low reputation users be prevented from necroposting?:
Despite Captcha
AFAIK Captcha is literally worthless now. My understanding is that neural nets are better at Captcha than most humans.
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@Mark-Olson said in Can low reputation users be prevented from necroposting?:
My understanding is that neural nets are better at Captcha than most humans.
Yea, I would always miss those tiny portions of traffic signals in the wee corners of the images. This really is a better task for a computer.
Rob Ott agrees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWSJhfX6PfQ&ab_channel=TheRiske -
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@Lycan-Thrope said in Can low reputation users be prevented from necroposting?:
@PeterJones ,
What I don’t understand, is how are they getting on to the forums to begin with?I mean, I sign on with my Google account, you have also the Github account possibility and what, Facebook also, so how is it possible that these trolls/bots are even allowed to post in forums that they haven’t signed in for? Turning off posting ability, if an option, for non-registered users, would seem to be the way to go, if it’s possible.
If you look through this forum’s users list there are quite a few accounts that have never posted. I suspect many of those accounts are for scammers or spammers and assume that it’s robot assisted humans doing whatever is needed to create accounts.
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@PeterJones
Yeah, I guess it would be kind of difficult to automate that kind of abuse out, being committed by people that have no real skill sets other than to imitate being trained monkeys. :-)
