Question Feature request: Handle SPAM via forum members

After seeing the Kunena forum spammed a lot lately, I thought about a way I (as a community member) could help in cleaning the mess up that these spammers generate.

Kunena (but for that matter every forum software) is a community tool. As a community member I feel 'unhappy' that when I see SPAM on the forum I cannot do much about it other then 'SPAM' the moderator with a message (Report to moderator link).

I think that with a small change in the code we could accomplish the following:

Add in the back-end a threshold for 'report to moderator' clicks, then when threshold is reached take the topic / message automatically offline.
The moderator can then decide (when he/she comes online) if the message is indeed spam (and should be deleted) or not (and made visible again)

threshold = number of different people reporting the topic / message, not the number of times a message is reported.

I think this would help not only me in being able to contribute in a positive way, but also the forum moderators because SPAM has the tendency to always surface when the timing is wrong (and you are not online)

What would make it even better (but is more work) is to have a separate functionality like report to moderator > 'report as spam'

What do you think?

This is a way of dealing with spam after its creation. It's better to have more options and controls to prevent spam being created in the first place.

Hello,

@rudd : with your suggestion you need to store somewhere the number of reported spams for each message, so i think a new column need to be added in kunena_messages table to handle that

There is a setting in Kunena configuration to put messages for user which less a certain number of posts under approved mode.

ShockPuppet wrote: This is a way of dealing with spam after its creation. It's better to have more options and controls to prevent spam being created in the first place.

agree, and in a perfect world that would be enough, but with the number of spam messages I see on this forum alone, it turns out that our world is not that perfect :woohoo:
Spam is always finding a way to 'bypass' preventive measures and in all cases it looks bad on the platform the messages are displayed (and if you have notify on: mailed around)

xillibit wrote: @rudd : with your suggestion you need to store somewhere the number of reported spams for each message, so i think a new column need to be added in kunena_messages table to handle that

There is a setting in Kunena configuration to put messages for user which less a certain number of posts under approved mode.

Agree on the extra column, you need to store the counter somewhere

I know the setting, but how is that working here on this forum? Last week alone there was a lot of spam that I could have easily 'marked' while I was browsing the forum...

I have a forum with about 50.000 members,
there are some traps in this.
People that hate each other will start to report each other,
and at the end everything will be one big report.
For this reason i removed karma too.

Nikiniko wrote: I have a big forum with about 50.000 members,
there are some traps in this.
People that hate each other will start to report each other,
and at the end everything will be one big report.
For this is the reason i removed karma too.

Cool! Not the fact that they report each other but the size of your forum

As administrator you should be able to turn that option of. Not sure if it is also possible to turn of 'report to moderator'?

Thank you,
they dont report to moderator now,because i will report them after :evil: ,
but IF the post will unpublish then it will be a mess, all will start.

Posts and reviews if you ask how helpfull or liked they are ,
they vote by friendship.

ruud wrote: What do you think?

This topic is posted in the category Kunena 4.0 Feature Requests . In my opinion there should be no "new features" added to K 4.0 at this time,

There should be a lesson here for the developers about the experience of (a) requesting new features and (b) adding new features.

In the "old days" there was a forum category here where people could suggest new ideas for new features. For some unexplained reason, the developers added a new category for people to request new features in K 4.0. I do not understand the reason why the developers created a new forum category for these things when a forum category already existed. However, that's the fact of the matter and it's something that has already caused a lot of confusion.

The second point I want to make about "reguesting" new features to be added to K 4.0 is that it created a number of false expectations within the community. The category Kunena 4.0 Feature Requests was created after the initial beta release of K 4.0. Now, perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of the term " beta version " but it has been my belief that, when a software project reaches the beta phase,

... the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs.

We should also remember that the alpha phase—the initial design and construction) of the K 4.0 feature set—took nearly two years to complete. According to the developers' own plan, K 4.0 is already at end-of-life pending the release of K 5.0. The question therefore remains, why request new features for K 4.0 at this stage?

So, for these reasons, I would argue that this forum category called Kunena 4.0 Feature Requests has already served its purpose and the category should be locked. If the developers think there's some benefit in asking the community for suggestions for K 5.0 then, perhaps, it would be an idea to create a new forum category for that?

Secondly, we have already witnessed the dangers of adding adding new features. With each minor dot-point release of K 4.0—with the exception of K 4.0.7—new features were added and new defects were introduced. Parts of Kunena that used to work in older version were broken in new releases. Some of the new features did not work, either, or they introduced new problems. Although the ideas for new features are good, the consequences of adding new features is disastrous. Adding new features has caused a loss in confidence within the community about the stability of the product.

I believe the developers should focus their activities on (a) rectifying known problems and, if necessary, removing those "new features" that were added after K 4.0 beta was released if those additions created additional problems, and (b) developing K 5.0 and the appropriate support mechanisms (i.e. documentation, website) that users require.

In conclusion:

a) the time for requesting new features for K 4.0 is over and I suggest that this category should be locked and archived for posterity.

b) instead of strengthing the community's involvement, adding new features in K 4.0 results in the community's loss of confidence in the product.

And, in answer to your question, that's what I think.

Thanks Sozzled for sharing your thoughts

I trust the developers and the community to do what they feel needs and can be done.
For what it's worth: Reason for me to have a regained confidence in Kunena is because of the developers doing their best on implementing new features and fixing bugs.
Will there be errors and bugs? I really hope so: not for bashing the developers afterwards, but for kicking my own bud in not helping them enough with testing > creating bug free software is a community effort. (same applies to documentation )

If my request is misplaced into the wrong forum category, feel free to move it to the correct one.