Honsoku
Posts: 422
Joined: 6/26/2007 Status: offline
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I have complied some anti-spam ideas. The problem, as it sits, is that there is essentially no cost or limit to the amount of mail that any one mass-mailer can send, so there is little disincentive to high volume/low yield approaches such as the infamous "Kneel, bitch". In order to cut down on spam, this lack of cost ought to be addressed. The fundamental core of each of these ideas is that they only apply if the sender has not received any mail from the recipient in, say, the last six months (the length of time a message will sit in your inbox before being automatically deleted). Therefore, none of these ideas will affect any ongoing conversations, only the attempt to initiate new contact. All numbers are chosen for example purposes and are not intended to be the specific number used. Therefore, if you criticize that it might interfere with ongoing conversations, or that you think the number should be "x" instead of "y", I shall beat you with a forum stick or send you to the corner of the web without supper, whichever you like least Now, without further adieu; 1: A (hard) cap on new contacts, say five a day. So you can contact up to five people whom has never contacted you a day. Advantage: This is by far the simplest option, almost anyone could comprehend it, and would probably have a devastating effect on the amount of spam/crap if set near to five. Disadvantage: may lead some people to send out *more* messages because of the "use it, or lose it" nature of a hard cap. 2: A rolling cap. A larger total cap, say 20, which counts against all new contacts in the last five days. Advantage: allows for a more flexible system where a person isn't penalized for being a sporadic messenger. Disadvantage: More complicated. 3: An ever increasing message "credit". Every day, a small amount gets added to your credit and every message you send deducts from your total credit. Advantage: absolutely no penalty for being idle for a long period of time. Disadvantage: May lead to rotating "sleeper" spam accounts as spammers wait for the accounts to build credits None of these can foul a determined spammer as they simply can create more accounts. However, creating more accounts does at least pose additional constraints and hamper the ability to do very wide range spamming due to CM's inefficient browsing/searching interface. Therefore, the best method may be one which doesn't actually limit anything, which would strongly encourage multiple accounts, but instead identifies likely spammers for the reader so they can be treated accordingly. In that spirit; 4: In a person's inbox, have a number next to the sender's name which counts how many new contact attempts that the sender has made in the last month. Couple that with a filter option to filter out any messages from someone with a number above "x". Advantages: No cap, doesn't provide strong encouragement to create multiple accounts, and allows the recipient to make up his/her own mind. Disadvantages: Complicated (to write), doesn't reduce spam, does little to nothing to mitigate the "newbie crush". If anyone has any additional ideas or improvements, I'm all ears.
< Message edited by Honsoku -- 2/2/2009 10:09:41 PM >
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