Should StopForumSpam Username Matches Be Ignored?

[VisEntities]

If StopForumSpam only flagged the username (without an IP or email), for example: StopForumSpam matched (username: 8), should I just ignore it? The name is 'Joan' so there can literally be thousands of people with that name. Basing a violation on the username alone doesn’t seem reasonable, what do you think?

 

[Ozzy47]

I would certainly ignore it.

 

[cdub]

You really need to watch out for Joan. She's a menace.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Ignore any common names

 

[Mendalla]

I always follow up with checks of other items like email and IP if username is the only thing flagged. I don't ignore it entirely, but I do investigate further rather than rejecting offhand.

 

[Alan_SP]

If it's very common name, like Joan, yes, of course. If it's a bit more odd name, it certainly can be a sign of spammer.

 

[Wildcat Media]

I wish we could leave usernames out of the scoring or at the very least, apply a lower score than email or IP. Most of the flagged usernames turn out to be OK.

 

[Kevin]

I wish we could leave usernames out of the scoring or at the very least, apply a lower score than email or IP. Most of the flagged usernames turn out to be OK.

Resource icon

[FF] StopForumSpam Flag Selector

Nov 15, 2022

Choose which user flags to use for spam checks

• benFF
• Add-ons [2.x]

To disable username as part of the criteria you can give it a weight of 0.

So far it seems to be working okay with XF 2.3.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Resource icon

[FF] StopForumSpam Flag Selector

Nov 15, 2022

Choose which user flags to use for spam checks

• benFF
• Add-ons [2.x]

To disable username as part of the criteria you can give it a weight of 0.

So far it seems to be working okay with XF 2.3.

Thanks for the tip--I just downloaded this addon. I like that weighting can be applied to the various flags.

I do have an addon that does a lot for spam detection, but it has dozens of settings and (IMHO, anyway) they are not well described. All I really wanted out of that addon was the ability to detect banned members who signed up again. So it's a lot of baggage for just one feature.

 

[Alpha1]

Ignore usernames completely .