Is this possible (details)

That’s a good idea @ANef_is_Enuf. I don’t know but I think it would help.

Hmm, I wonder if it would help with the Google ranking that @Dog was talking about too.

GQ

I would think there would be a way to disallow certain text for the first post. Then they could block “http://”. This is a great idea!

Brilliant idea, however, it should be for at least 5 first answers. A lot of times, those spammy accounts post 5 or more spam links before the get kicked.

Yeah! That’s a great idea! Don’t allow people to post links until they reach 1000 lurve or so; but you’ll still have to parse answers to strip away spaces and as in w w w . cheep – shoos. c o m (not a real web address AFAIK [as far as I know], otherwise spammers will still put in their addresses even if they’re not links). Perhaps even do away with links altogether to solve the Google “problem.”

Interesting idea! I have no clue if it’s possible or easily accomplished, but it’s definitely worth considering. I’ll pass it along!

I like the idea. When I first joined then newbies could post only a few questions a day or week, can’t remember but it made sense in order to get a feel for the community and also to navigate the site, structure posts and whatnots.

I think restricting links posting to members with a certain amount of lurve is better than a certain amount of posts. If its the latter, a spammer will just post more spam until they get to the point where they’ve got enough to put a link in. With the former it’ll never happen because no-one will ever give them lurve.

@downtide has a great idea using the lurve. It wouldn’t have to be a very significant amount either since spammers usually hit just once with their created accounts?

Actually it was @HungryGuy ‘s idea first, I was just agreeing with him. :)

Actually, it was @ANef_is_Enuf‘s idea in her question. I just expanded it from a user’s first answer to their first 1000 lurve (a determined spammer could ask a few troll questions to get past that “first answer” requirement, but probably won’t bother staying around to earn 1000 lurve [which a real jelly earns relatively quickly]). Similar suggestions have been kicked around previously, but I don’t think there’s any way to confirm who came up with it absolutely first.

If it is to block spammers, how hard is that? Once a user is tagged a spammer their IP address is recorded and kept somehow in a database. A program quickly scans this database against the IP address of all new users, a match, user is dumped. Let the technology do the work. If we have computers that can recognize faces and retinas, we can’t have a program to do this simple task?

Oh, great idea!

You can’t block IP addys. With a couple of exceptions, most IP addy’s are assigned dynamically. After a while, you’ll just end up blocking a whole range of IP addy’s from a particular ISP, then nopbody from that ISP will be able to use Fluther.

It’s certainly possible to either filter out links or to reject posts which contain them, using a regular expression to match them (I’d probably make it such that it matches on any string ending in a TLD, like .com$, .cc$ or the like).
It’s not a perfect method, and it’s defeatable, but it would match on most attempts. If the system then rejected the post with a vague error message (“New users not allowed to post links” or whatever) then spammers will probably give up fairly quickly.

From what I gather most of the spam is actually on the profile pages since that is easier to have go unnoticed.

On my site I just banned all IPs from China and India. Killed 99% of the spammers and maybe only hurt one legit user. I can live with that.

It can be done but don’t forget a spam bot can just post a random bullcrap somewhere then start spamming. If it can’t post link in the first messages it doesn’t mean they will stop spamming.

I don’t mean to insinuate that I think it would be a magic fix, or that there wouldn’t be ways around it. I just figure that almost every morning there are posts with a similar format, a question about a product, a link to the product in the question… and often another new profile that will answer with a positive review and a second link.
Also, it would prevent tumblr follow me and I’ll follow you type of posts from new users.

Just thought I’d throw it out there.

Maybe not such a great idea, because then it also screws over newbies who come here going “what’s this” with a link (as a legitimate question), and if they aren’t allowed to post links, then they’ll just move on to another Q&A site and not stick around. Shouldn’t having the norelfollow or whatever for the first 100 lurve be enough?

@Aethelflaed I thought about that, too. I just figured that the number of new users that just ask a question without a link, excluding spammers and tumblr people, outnumbers the ones that do. Not that I know statistics, or that it’s my call to make, but I did think of that.

Yahoo Answers doesn’t allow newbies to post links either, but it doesn;t put people off joining or staying. If a legitimate user really needs to put in a link they can put the url in as plain text and if we need to look we can copy and paste it into our browsers. It’s not a biggie.

I agree with @downtide. Not allowing new users to post links will annoy 1 in 100 legitimate new users, but will block 99 in 100 spammers.

@downtide Yeah, I guess it’s just that we aren’t as big as Y!A, so we can’t always take all the liberties they do. I would think it actually does put off some users from staying, they’re just big enough that no one notices.

I think @downtide is on to something: 99% of the time I do not click on a link – no matter what the funny cartoon or video it is. I don’t require a visual, I’ve heard all the songs. I might click when I have extra time, and I know who the poster is – and I think I know what the link is all about – or not, so I am curious. But in general – I don’t need a link.

So if links were disabled, I wouldn’t mind. They could be posted here – to be copy/pasted – without linking directly – right? Would that help?