Approving a new user posts that contains links

OK. So now we are seeing an increase in spam posts esp. using AI to generate plausible looking posts.

Is there a way to require a review of posts which:

  • Are made by TL0; and
  • Contains a link (http://)?

Currently the first x posts are reviewed, but esp. with AI, spammers post x amount of innocuous posts before posting the spam links.

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Change this setting to Trust level 1

Found in Admin settings section.

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It’s a sledgehammer approach, but worth considering!

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Maybe. But that will do exactly what you want. Any tl0 new members who post a link will goto moderation. I believe.

Easy to test change setting and use a test user with tl0 to post a link.

Plus if you’re using Discobot onboarding. Just completing the tutorial will bump their user level.

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Ah. From the description it sounds like if you are TL0, you cannot make a post if it contains a link.

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Okay just tested. Sledgehammer it is.

It will not let a Topic or post creation if contains a link tl0.

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You could change the ‘newuser max links’ site setting to 0 to prohibit new users from posting links. However, that would also affect posting in general

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Yes, there seems to be 2 ways to prevent new users from posting links.

I’m wondering if there is a way to allow new users to post links, but have those posts go into moderation before being visible.

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Just tested that, after finding. It is the same as changing allowed group form tl0 to tl1.

New topic & posts are blocked if Max New User Links set from 2 to 0

I think it works both individually but not in combination. You could require approval for all users except those in ‘approved groups’, and you could require approval for all posts containing links using watched words. But both would cause more posts to need approval.

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I would suggest maybe at present to make a feature request. As this is a very reasonable idea.

This was my initial thought, hoping to be able to specify groups that can bypass it and setting that to the trust_level_1 group. Sadly there is no such bypass option.