Can we increase security measures for this site?
I mean seriously, a simple email authentication is required is able to solve so many problems,
like you need to verified a email before you can make forum posts, and chat in the chatrooms and etc.
Everyday I see so many spam posts on my front page, from so many spam bots and you're volunteers are working like crazy to delete them.
And then don't get me started on the chatrooms, like seriously everyday I swear people creating new accounts just so they can troll the chats. I understand yall wanna make everyone inclusive by making an easy access but you gotta understand you're letting a very huge door for trolls to abuse this site and to be honest it's making people like me, who frequent this site and IS AN ACTUAL member very uncomfortable. Also your volunteers, the group mods all working like crazy to ban the trolls, but seriously all this can be helped with just simple security measures from the admin's part.
I just don't get it, every, and I do mean EVERY legitimate website has security measures, I don't why 7 Cups choose to abandon every security measures there is? Please fix this...
If the admins are not familiar with IT I highly recommend hiring an IT person on your admin crew, I mean this IS a WEBSITE based support site, afterall...O.o I am just utterly baffled...
i sorry for your lost@justanothersoult
No one has ever invented a way to discover whether an e-mail address is "authentic".
Spam bots can easily create "authentic" e-mail addresses for themselves. If you send a verification link, the spam bot can process the e-mail, "click" the link and verify the account.
A reasonably good way to verify an account is to require a card number, make a small charge against it, and verify the account when the payment goes through. The charge can be optionally refunded. But even this fails when baddies have access to huge lists of stolen card numbers. And of course it excludes people who don't have cards, which we certainly don't want to do at 7 Cups.
@RarelyCharlie
I mean, I realised it's not 100% bullet proof, but hey it's like saying, "well thiefs can pick locks anyway and it's really to do so, so why bother having a door in the 1st place? Should just have a room without doors". It just seems to me 7 Cups is having "no doors" at all in terms of security measures, what I'm trying to say is please DO SOMETHING, rather than having nothing at all.
You're right, the original idea was that anyone can get emotional support here without having to reveal who they are. It was a deliberate "no doors" policy.
Having a door but the lock isn't very good is worse than no door at all, because it keeps out some of the vulnerable people we want to help, and it does nothing to keep out dedicated trolls and professional spammers.
Forum spam is mostly easy to remove before it even gets into the database. The reasons this doesn't happen are unclear. Part of the story, I'm now thinking, is that there's a general resistance to fixing things—fixing anything. But I don't understand why that should be.
It's certainly not for lack of development resource. We had development resource for animal icons, and for the wiki, soon. We can look forward to wiki spam, I imagine.
Chatroom trolls are a different matter. I never use the chatrooms because of some bad experiences when I first joined. But in another way it might be the same problem—a general resistance to fixing things.
@justanothersoult
@RarelyCharlie
So you're saying we shouldn't have email verification because it doesn't work, and we shouldn't use the card verification because it excludes others,
hmm, so you're saying there is absolutely nothing you guys can do to change?
So what's your suggestion? Seems like you're just trying to silence people instead of helping with a more positive change. If you don't like what has been posted, you can just move on and read another thread, you don't need to be condescending about it.
By the way, other websites are not infested with spams and trolls, gee I wonder how they do it, must be black magic and witchcraft then.
I understand your struggle. I've tried to report spam posts but .. by cliking on them I'm already giving them what I want, so there's nothing I found to help the situation.
I do feel frustrated with the spam but honestly there's not really a solution for spam... :/
Now for trolls that I don't really know? I always report trolls in chat rooms, but is not always easy because makes me people upset. It just ruins people's day.
Hope someone pays attention to this post because it really is important. This needs to be a safe place
