Just an observation recently. I saw a few comments in our forums that seemed a bit odd, but also human enough and there were no links or ads in there, so ok. A week later they were edited adding links to some sites. Now i’m noticing this more often. One sentence comment, which doesn’t always make sense, but is more or less about the topic of the main post. And in a week or so a link is attached. And as this is an edit, you are not getting notified about a new comment. So i only notice this as i check all updated/new posts. Discourse won’t allow new user to post a link in a first post or it would go into a approval queue. But editing is allowed.
Interesting angle of attack. Have you already thought about setting the post edit time limit lower or to at least any value?
Usually you don’t need to allow people to edit their posts forever and it might even hurt discussion outside of spam issues if users can edit their posts like forever.
Search for “post edit time limit” in settings to see what you have set it to and maybe change it.
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That’s a possible workaround if this issue gets bigger. But we need editing option for “tutorial/lists” posts, so you can update things or add something to the list. Seems like it will make my life harder. maybe users with low reputation shouldn’t be allowed to add links even when editing week later.
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I’m not a total pro but editing should still be allowed for wiki posts - maybe it makes sense to put tutorials and stuff in wiki posts then. Just an idea - may not fit you use case.
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It doesn’t affect the wiki editing logic, so you’re safe there, but I’ve observed this kind of behavior on wiki posts too.
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What trust level are these users? There are now independent site settings for allowed edit window for TL0 and TL1 users so that can be tightened as needed.
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These users were new, with just 1 post. Which are these setting to restrict editing for TL0/1?
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Search in your settings for editing grace period
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Hi @wroot –
I’m with @helmi; a week is a very generous edit window, although certainly it depends on how you use your replies with your community. Perhaps the TL restrictions are the better way to go for you.
The topic below also seems to describe what you’re experiencing at this time; I don’t think that the TL0/1 restrictions were available then.
But at least you’re not alone. 
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I think editing grace period is about not creating new version of a post in history, not about blocking editing. At least this is what i understand from its description.
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You’re absolutely correct. I should have said post edit time limit – thanks for the catch.
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Well, we discussed this before. I need to edit my posts (list of tickets, guides) myself, so limiting with that option will create problems for myself. I have read about Wikis and it seems everyone will have an option to edit them, which is also not an option (unless i close it after editing, if it works this way). And i can’t find a way to post a wiki in our forums (maybe disabled or some module missing).
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It doesn’t affect staff members.
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I see. Will have that in mind. Thanks.
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Is this setting so new that it’s not in the latest version? (2.4.0.beta7)
I can see a setting for TL2+ and a setting for both TL0 and TL1 combined but not the required split between TL0 and TL1.
This spamming technique has happened on my site too - it’s certainly not prevalent enough to be an immediate concern but they’ve no doubt already learnt that it is a very effective way to bypass the default anti-spam configuration of Discourse forums so I suspect it won’t take them long to ramp up their efforts.
It would be good to be able to target this editing restriction at only new users (and as far as I know, TL0 is the best way to identify a new user, correct?)
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Chris, these settings for T2+ and T0/T1 won’t help with such spam as they only affect version history, not the ability to edit. So, essentially there is just one setting “post edit time limit”, which you can set to say 60 (minutes). So after an hour nobody should be able to edit posts, aside from staff members (i suppose admins/moderators?). Although i would prefer for anti spam work the same for edits with links like it does for new posts.
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