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Solution proposals for cleaner forums (No replies)

shenzo
1 week ago
shenzo 1 week ago

Hello Roger, James and everybody,

I am sure I am not the only one to have noticed with a certain sadness that this forum is slowly but surely getting inundated by fake members and phishing messages. What was a once-in-a-while appearance has become the norm. Since this forum is quite a valuable resource, I would like to start this thread so we can brainstorm on what can be short and long term solutions.

Here's my few cents, please share yours:

  1. In term of clearing the existing 'noise', one possibility would be to add a few moderators with just enough 'power' to delete fake users and phishing messages. It takes time to do it, just like a gardener has to take out the weeds from time to time.  Some of us may have that extra bit of time at hand to help and if there are a couple of these moderators, then even less work for each of them.
  2. In term of of preventing future noise, what needs to be protected is the 'gate' where members sign-in to prevent bots to be able to sign in. I have suggested in the past the use of Google CAPTCHA but since this forum is a plugin, I am not sure if it can work with it. Any webmaster among us?
  3. Someone previously suggested to create a sub-forum on reddit. Reddit is an amazing place to share and structure informations. It has a powerful search engine. The forum can also be private with membership, just like this one. There are different options : "For a private subreddit, only approved submitters will be able to view and comment in the subreddit. For "restricted" subreddits, anyone can view and comment, but only approved submitters can make submissions." Also post can be upvoted and downvoted to allow the most informative posts to percolate at the surface of a sea of posts. But this platform also need active moderators and it also means that posts made on this forum may not be able to be migrated to a reddit sub-forum, which in itself, contains its own set of problems.
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