Could anything be done about scammers?

LewisBerneu

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Sep 26, 2024
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As this thread testifies, I and several others have been bombarded with what look like scams offering 'collaboration' or whatever. They all seem to be recent registrations. Could the admins look into this please?
 

Arkus86

Well-known member
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Jan 1, 2019
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It's not something you can prevent. Concerning automated systems, registration behind nearly any verification check is easy to bypass, unless it requires verifiable private information, implementing a limit of messages per day is a poor idea (and would not have much effect here, as they rarely seem to get out more than ten messages at a time), monitoring private messages is controversial at best, so you are basically left with some algorithm monitoring all public messages for repeating patterns, and that is far from perfect as well.

If you see someone suspicious, report them and be done with it. It's easy to spot them once you know the patterns.
 

LewisBerneu

Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2024
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Yes, easy enough to ignore them, but there's a slight risk I might ignore a genuine message.
I got this by PM from a "emmawat567438". All it said was "The story had real energy, keep writing". Doesn't even say which story...
Since that individual seems to be only PM'ing, not commenting, can't yet be sure they're a spammer, though it seems more than likely.

I'm thinking: could a new member not be allowed to PM/DM anyone until they've posted at least one story or comment?
 

Piisfun

Playful Spacetime Dragon
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Jun 2, 2020
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Yes, easy enough to ignore them, but there's a slight risk I might ignore a genuine message.
I got this by PM from a "emmawat567438". All it said was "The story had real energy, keep writing". Doesn't even say which story...
Since that individual seems to be only PM'ing, not commenting, can't yet be sure they're a spammer, though it seems more than likely.

I'm thinking: could a new member not be allowed to PM/DM anyone until they've posted at least one story or comment?
That would actually be a reasonable idea, though I would increase it to 1 story or 5 comments.
 
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