Re: Please , can we stop spams?
**@dataman** there is no "attitude" we just miss new people sometimes (that's a forum issue that needs to be fixed), apologies.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
Almost two days passed, and my first message is still moderated. I have never seen such an attitude to users at any forum.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
There was recently a controversial thread that is now "locked", and there was some talk of deleting it ([Page 1 on archive.ORG](http://web.archive.org/web/20170110174918/http://forum.nim-lang.org/t/2687/1)/[.IS](http://archive.is/1oLoN); [Page 2 on archive.ORG](http://web.archive.org/web/20170110174918/http://forum.nim-lang.org/t/2687/2)/[.IS](http://archive.is/U8NkD)). **I hope that it remains locked rather than deleted**, which I think is _very_ unethical. Aside from a proper thread locking mechanism, I think this forum needs some more features to properly accommodate the needs of Nim's online community: * **Thread tagging**: organize threads into categories by adding one or more tags, with admins having final say over what tags the thread ends up with. That way people can easily view all posts related, for example, to Nim release announcements, library release announcements, blog links, language feature proposals, stdlib proposals, etc. Some tags would have special meaning, like "nerdfight" / "drama" / "locked" / "trash" / "recycle bin" (whatever you wanna call it) - for threads like the one above, which would be hidden from the thread listing by default, but still visible when desired. * **Avoid Covert Mutability**: disable non-admin edits for posts older than say 3 days. This prevents disingenuous revisionism, and also optimizes spider revisiting needs, for example simplifying maintaining an archive of this forum to IPFS without the need to revisit old threads to know if they've changed. Also, if, unlike myself, the admins frown upon what some people call "necroing", that is posting replies on old threads, then the forum should at very least warn you of this preference. * As an added argument for my previously suggested **user profile identity enhancements** (validated connection with GitHub, OpenHub, GitLab, Reddit, FreeNode nick validation, etc), I'd like to include this [selective blog quote](http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6758) from my fellow libertarian software philosopher [esr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond): > **In the hacker culture, you should be judged by your work and your work > alone. Show me your code. I want to see URLs to public repositories with your > commits in them.** (OpenHub statistics will do for a first cut.) Your > credibility goes up with commit volume and number of different projects. and > especially with the number of other people you have collaborated with. In > theory, I might be open to other metrics than commit volume for people who > aren't primarily software engineers. But that's an edge case; the point is, > whether it's lines of code or Thingiverse objects or PCB layouts, I want to > see evidence of contributed work. * A further step in this integration would be **read-only import of Nim issues, comments, etc** into this forum (especially from GitHub & Reddit), so everything can be seen / browsed / searched from one place. I hope that in the near future I'll **_FINALLY_** find the time to submit some feature / enhancements code proposals for [nimforum](https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum) (rather than just feature suggestions and half-baked code snippets)...
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
The forum has been updated. New users are now moderated. It's also much faster now.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
I've seen flagging working well for other forums. When a comment is flagged as spam by N users a moderator will be able to remove the comment and block the account that posted it. If regular users abuse the spam flag the moderator can block their account instead. N=1 is probably enough to start with.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
I think moderator approval of first posts by users is the best solution so far. Not too much work for moderators, and no change for anybody who is already on the board, except no new spam anymore. Flagging is not the best idea. I think currently it means that all active users have to flag something before anything happens (rough guess of active users at the moment), and when there are a ton of users, flagging gets abused to remove unwanted content that has nothing to do with SPAM, it is just an unpopular opinion.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
I'm not saying that having a GitHub account should be a _requirement_ for joining, but it could be a part of the "business logic" for new account validation. It's very easy to implement. If you're an established Nim developer, the forum rolls out a red carpet. If you're not, your first X posts are hidden until a moderator validates them. Or something like that. Linking forum profiles to GitHub is a good idea for a number of other reasons as well: keeping track of who is who, who wrote what, etc.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
The admins have to set some rules about posting.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
I agree that requiring a GitHub account will do more harm than good. It may be worth hooking in to the StopForumSpam API which would help block bots (but not much help for humans). Realistically, human spam is very difficult to combat without impacting the user experience for legitimate users.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
Having a GitHub account should not be required to participate in the community and I think it's harmful to make people with few original Nim code second-class citizens.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
Another idea is GitHub integration. Make each new user authenticate with GitHub, scan his/her repos for original Nim code, assign reputation rank based on star count. 8)
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
There are two solutions: * Ever new user's first post needs to be approved by a moderator. * We introduce a flagging mechanism, so that forum users can flag spam and once enough people flag it the post becomes invisible. Of course, we can do both too. I think this is how HN works and it's a good solution. The only thing left is implementing it :)
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
I would prefer what Araq suggested. Spammers are almost always new accounts, and that information should be used to not make the life of people harder who contribute. I don't know what is currently done, but I would suggest when someones first post is Spam, the accounts should be banned. I would wonder if it is done otherwise.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
Making the life of legitimate users difficult is not a good way to fight spam.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
Last time investigations showed that spammers might be real human beings. The better solution is manual approval of new members, I think.
Re: Please , can we stop spams?
That's actually a good idea, and everyone could give it a shot [https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum/pulls](https://github.com/nim-lang/nimforum/pulls)
