Deal Posting from Overseas?

scotty on 29/10/2008 - 00:21

Recently we have quite a few questionable "spams" being posted on OzBargain, advertising products from DealExtreme-like sites but are more expensive, price in ever raising USD and do not include international shipping cost.

For example

Actually I found if I block all China IP address from posting deals, that will cut down the number of spams dramatically. But the question is — is it a good idea to do it?

Pro —

  • Cut down number of spam deals automatically. Less work for moderators.
  • Only deal posting are blocked, and viewing/commenting/etc are not so someone from China can still respond to postings.

Con —

  • Someone in China cannot post a new deal for us Aussies. Or when you travel to China you won't be able to post a deal in the net cafe.
  • Easy to bypass with a proxy.
  • It does not block the Indonesian spammers, Canadian spammers and US spammers.

Any suggestion?

Site Discussion

Comments

  • cacbm on 29/10/2008 - 00:47

    I reckon leave it as it is. People will vote it down so it's not visible to most people anyway, unless you check Live Action. Deleting spams while troublesome but hardly hard work for mods. Having said that I don't know how many spams OzBargain is getting a day.

  • [Deactivated] on 29/10/2008 - 07:20

    Maybe its time to block all these automatically but provide an avenue for us to check them out - ie the deal is blocked but they can leave a message for the mods for the deal to be posted. Frankly this could apply to all deals posted from abroad, As this is OZbargain. So if it is a deal and not a scam it is already moderated before being posted. Any legit business would be ok with that. Working through proxies might still get through but will be limited.

    actually on second thoughts could these be processed but not available for members until approved by the mods with a message to the poster like ….

    As this posting is from overseas there is a 24hour delay while it is approved. Ozbargain being for Australian bargains etc ete.

    • adam on 05/11/2008 - 21:39

      I agree with what ozpete says… block certain categories of deals until they are approved by a moderator, including ones from dodgy IPs. You might even be able to require new members to have their posts approved, whereas previously proven posters could avoid moderation.

      I think you could open up the moderation to a number of long-term ozbargainers that would provide enough coverage such that moderation should be able to be done quite quickly.

      Spammy deals are easy enough to ignore but ozbargain is much more useful if these are reduced without introducing much of a lag into the listing of new posts.

  • neil on 29/10/2008 - 12:29

    OZPete's idea is good, awaiting approval while the mods check out the deal. Although, I'm undecided if company1/company2 postings are SPAM. Sort of one the line between a bargain/SPAM.

  • scotty on 30/10/2008 - 23:35

    Got lots of spams again today, from accounts with "Perth" and "Gold Coast" as locations — but all from IP addresses in China. It's not just spamming — it's deceiving.

    I think ozpete's idea is good. If the poster's condition fits into certain criteria (for example, from overseas IP address), the deal might be in unpublished state or in moderation queue first which moderators can then come in and approve/delete the post.

  • elcheapo on 31/10/2008 - 22:57

    I requested it quite some time ago :)

    http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/5802

    • scotty on 31/10/2008 - 23:55

      Yes. Thanks for reminding me. I've done my tax return and hopefully will have some time in November, sitting down to do some coding…

  • Noslee on 01/11/2008 - 01:26

    Guys, spammer is one thing, we could all vote them down, i think elcheapo and I voted 4 in a row down last night, however I also remember there is this one post where someone hid a porn link behind "online voucher" in the comment. I mean those could've been malicious links as well… you never know, and no one can vote a comment out :P

    • scotty on 01/11/2008 - 14:38

      Yup. Comment voting has been planned…

      • cacbm on 16/11/2008 - 05:53

        Would love to see comment voting. maybe like an engadget style where the lower your rating, the less visible your comment is. (colour)

        • scotty on 20/11/2008 - 23:40

          Sure. I am thinking more of the Reddit/Digg style, where comments get too many negative votes will just disappear…

  • scotty on 13/02/2009 - 17:18

    Hi guys! Sorry to resurrect an old thread. I have actually implemented this for a while —- but just in case no one has noticed, here it is.

    In the deal voting pages (when you log in as a user, you can see the list of users + time whom have voted for the deal), now you can see the country where the vote was originally from. For example this "deal" that I have just pulled:

    ![Votes with country code](/files/images/ccode-in-vote.png "Votes with Country Code")

    Sorry only mods can see the actual IP addresses, but regular users should still be able to see the country flags. Basically for "jafferson" there's a PRoC flag there, indicating their IP address is actually originated from China. For votes that originate from Australian IP then there will be no flag next to it. Do note that the IP to country code look up might be wrong sometimes (big company's own IP address will show US flag there), but it's generally useful to help you to figure out whether a deal is really an Aussie bargain.

    • HueyData on 13/02/2009 - 20:13

      Great feature, scotty - hadn't noticed it at all.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join