Protecting Gimkit Creative Forum from Spam

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AI-generated summary

The discussion revolves around protecting the Gimkit Creative Forum from spam. SlimArtist20375 reports being a temporary Trust Level 4 moderator dealing with over 5,000 spam topics, highlighting the need for action. The forum runs an outdated Discourse version, and attempts to contact admin Josh for an update have failed. Falco suggests updating Discourse, using spam prevention services like Akismet or AI, and placing the site behind Cloudflare. Heliosurge recommends temporarily requiring approval for new users and blocking disposable email addresses. Moin shares a resource on spam prevention tips, while HamMan2118 advises restricting topic creation to Trust Level 1 or higher, which has proven effective for other forums. SlimArtist20375 thanks the community and plans to relay the advice to Josh.

1

I am not a moderator of the Gimkit Creative forum, but I regular, and currently temporary Trust Level 4 to deal with attackers.

Here is what an example of what they have been posting.
https://forum.creative.gimkit.com/t/digi-finance-loan-app-customer-care-helpline-number-91-9059648233-85972-5-0950-calldigi-fi-bh/102424/1

We got hit with 5k+ spam topics. I know the discourse version is old, we have been trying to contact Josh, out admin, to update the forum but no luck in that.

Is there any advice you can give to stop this from happening again?

2
  1. Update Discourse
  2. Use a service to control spam, like Akismet or AI.
  3. Put your site behind Cloudflare.
3

As an intern solution switch forum over to approve new users for a couple of months

Have mods check for disposable email accounts and add them to the blacklist.

4
5

Okay, thank you! I’ll try to reach out to Josh with these.

6

One thing that I know a lot of forums do is they restrict the permission to create topics until TL1, which seems to help. I’d recommend doing this.

Sorry to hear you are having issues!