Eliminating Upvote Bots

[Principled Man]

Does anyone know how a website can eliminate these pesky "upvote" bots?

 

On another forum, we're plagued with them. No posts at all; just upvotes on our posts, and they're done by dozens of female names with a :mwah: behind each name.

 

Can anyone help?

[Nova Carmina]

Sorry; no idea. I wish there were a way, since the related plague of "I'm making 95000$ on this website" posts make comment sections something like a scavenger hunt. Sometimes people suck.

[Maverick]

:mwah:

[1-0-0-1-0-0-1]

This is why we have manual validation on new accounts. We have to go through each new registration and look at several things to see if they're legit or a spambot. It's time-consuming and sometimes new legit members have to wait a little longer for their accounts to be validated before they can start posting, but I'd rather take the extra time to eliminate those spambots.

 

Also, we don't enable the option where upvotes or poll votes will bump threads. I never understood the value of that.

[grep]

IP blocking might be a partial solution. Perhaps starting with known VPN's from questionable locations.

 

Just a thought.

[1-0-0-1-0-0-1]

IP blocking might be a partial solution. Perhaps starting with known VPN's from questionable locations.

 

Just a thought.

 

IP blocking can be like the whack-a-mole game. Ban one and they'll just use a different one. We only ban IPs when it's clear that a spambot is using the same IP for multiple accounts. Sometimes they use the same email for multiples, and those can be banned as well.

[_hi_water._]

IP blocking might be a partial solution. Perhaps starting with known VPN's from questionable locations.

 

Just a thought.

 

IP blocking can be like the whack-a-mole game. Ban one and they'll just use a different one. We only ban IPs when it's clear that a spambot is using the same IP for multiple accounts. Sometimes they use the same email for multiples, and those can be banned as well.

Sockpuppetry!

[BastillePark]

IP blocking might be a partial solution. Perhaps starting with known VPN's from questionable locations.

 

Just a thought.

 

IP blocking can be like the whack-a-mole game. Ban one and they'll just use a different one. We only ban IPs when it's clear that a spambot is using the same IP for multiple accounts. Sometimes they use the same email for multiples, and those can be banned as well.

Sockpuppetry!

 

[Principled Man]

It looks like the problem has been solved! :sundog: I forgot to mention that the forum was run by Disqus, which has apparently eliminated the bots (for now).

 

Every Disqus-run forum that I visited had the bots. What a bunch of pests!

[1-0-0-1-0-0-1]

It looks like the problem has been solved! :sundog: I forgot to mention that the forum was run by Disqus, which has apparently eliminated the bots (for now).

 

Every Disqus-run forum that I visited had the bots. What a bunch of pests!

 

Did they mention how they got rid of them?

[Principled Man]

It looks like the problem has been solved! :sundog: I forgot to mention that the forum was run by Disqus, which has apparently eliminated the bots (for now).

 

Every Disqus-run forum that I visited had the bots. What a bunch of pests!

 

Did they mention how they got rid of them?

 

I saw one conversation on their Help page. I believe that they had to do it the hard way - playing whack-a-mole.

[BastillePark]

It looks like the problem has been solved! :sundog: I forgot to mention that the forum was run by Disqus, which has apparently eliminated the bots (for now).

 

Every Disqus-run forum that I visited had the bots. What a bunch of pests!

 

Did they mention how they got rid of them?

 

Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin has been shown by Gweneth Paltrow to "work". :P