META - Anyone else having trouble with a ridiculous number of troll accounts?
This has really gotten out of hand. The last three days alone has seen RollaFatty, Too Busy, and a number of other super new accounts that are here for one reason alone: trolling the board and calling out specific board members. I know the mods have a really difficult time with all the content, but other than adding morons to the mod action sticky, not feeding them and downvoting the hell out of these idiots, is there anything that can be done behind the scenes to ban IP's, etc... It's getting out of hand.
Instead of losing work productivity to football content, snark and humor, I am now forced to wade through this shit. Any thoughts from the smarter tech crowd. I miss my MGoBlog.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:15 PM ^
Add phone number to sign-up requirements, with text verification? It’s hard to create a new phone number.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:19 PM ^
I would do this very willingly
December 12th, 2017 at 3:58 PM ^
If they really want to troll, they would need to use their moms phone.
December 12th, 2017 at 5:09 PM ^
They already use their moms phone.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^
I think this is a fantastic idea
December 12th, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^
This is a fantastic idea. +1 to you, my friend.
Although I feel bad because you signed up today, and I almost want to downvote you for that reason alone.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:24 PM ^
No it is not hard. Have you ever heard of Google Voice?
December 12th, 2017 at 7:50 PM ^
Next you're going to tell me that Google can eat my dinner for me.
December 12th, 2017 at 8:50 PM ^
So far Google can only eat your breakfast but they are working on other meals.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:22 PM ^
Says the guy who joined the blog today... I don't trust your advice. The current system seems to be working wonderfully.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:26 PM ^
2) mandate verified phone field within signatures 3) use phone numbers to schedule physical confrontations with other users 4) ???? 5) Profit!
December 12th, 2017 at 7:03 PM ^
Anyone caught tampering with the urine samples, WILL BE SHOT.
Jello Biafra.
December 12th, 2017 at 7:52 PM ^
I was just thirsty!
December 12th, 2017 at 9:30 PM ^
Retina scans
December 12th, 2017 at 2:28 PM ^
I'll pass on that.
Just making it so new accounts can't post for a few days or weeks would greatly improve the situation.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:30 PM ^
This is pretty accurate. If you impose a month or two waiting period, it would take a serious psycho to wait that out to post dumb shit only to have to wait again. I'm with Hatter.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:40 PM ^
Are you suggesting there are no "serious psychos" here?
December 12th, 2017 at 7:05 PM ^
Is create 100 accounts and wait a month and troll away. You would just be adding the first month of a delay, after that initial delay, off to the races.
December 12th, 2017 at 7:52 PM ^
Serious psycho, avatar checks out!
December 14th, 2017 at 9:53 PM ^
That's a GREAT idea!!!! Hadn't thought of it before.
You're brilliant!
December 12th, 2017 at 2:41 PM ^
I'm afraid we have too many serious psychos for this to be effective
December 12th, 2017 at 3:14 PM ^
Unfortunately, it has Benn amply demonstrated that we have exactly that kind of psycho on this here board.
December 12th, 2017 at 3:53 PM ^
Then we could DISCUSS it. Man I miss those guys.......
December 12th, 2017 at 4:35 PM ^
I'm Too Busy for all of this nonsense.
December 12th, 2017 at 3:59 PM ^
If you're a serious psycho, you create a whole bunch of burner accounts ahead of time. Then you can just move on to other accounts when your current one gets banned.
December 12th, 2017 at 4:13 PM ^
that's a creepy thought
December 12th, 2017 at 6:40 PM ^
Super Account Guide would be needed, I think?
December 12th, 2017 at 3:02 PM ^
I second this
December 12th, 2017 at 5:25 PM ^
Also: don't allow posters to upvote themselves.
December 12th, 2017 at 6:40 PM ^
Please please please
December 12th, 2017 at 2:39 PM ^
I don't think people should be required to give out phone numbers in order to sign up for a message board. There are other, less invasive ways of policing posters more stringently.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:41 PM ^
What are they?
December 12th, 2017 at 2:52 PM ^
1. Your first 25 (or any number) of posts have to be approved by mods.
2. Posting is not allowed until 30 days after sign-up.
December 12th, 2017 at 3:07 PM ^
Putting a minimum waiting period will do more to prevent trolls from signing up than a minimum number of points. And the threshold for starting a thread should be even higher - like at least 500 points or 60 days after signing up.
December 12th, 2017 at 4:17 PM ^
We should have the ability to block certain posters from our personal screens. Let the trollers have at it, but everyone who doesn't want to read their crap can block them.
If a troller posts and nobody reads it, does it make a sound?
December 12th, 2017 at 4:23 PM ^
Maybe a different aspect here. I've been a long time reader and lifelong fan but only decided to sign up after the OSU game this year because there were so many trolls saying some very un-Michigan things. So I'm not saying trolls are good, but having a provocative conversation once in a while does help get people off the fence on whether they want to participate more on mgoblog. That being said, I have no desire to click on a thread about how good I look.
I like the above suggestion but to add to it; I didn't have any problem registering using my umich.edu email. I know there are tons of good fans and people on this blog that don't have one for various reasons, but filtering new users by whether they have a umich.edu account might help. If you have one as a new user, 5 days 100 points to start a thread, without, 60 days 500 points or something. I wouldn't say that your troll level with umich accounts is going to be negligible, but probably a lot safer than [email protected].
December 12th, 2017 at 4:52 PM ^
I understand this comment but do not like it.
December 12th, 2017 at 4:34 PM ^
I've had an account for over 8 years and I don't think I can start a new thread.
December 12th, 2017 at 7:44 PM ^
Agree!
December 12th, 2017 at 2:46 PM ^
I've never seen any trolls around here
December 12th, 2017 at 2:55 PM ^
Ugh. Fuck off.
December 12th, 2017 at 3:33 PM ^
You two, or you’ll both get a time out.
December 12th, 2017 at 3:22 PM ^
You can get a Wi-Fi phone number through Text Now. I used it for my daughter because she was carrying a phone that was not activated. It was the only way for her to contact me when she got to the library after school. Trolls can still get a phone number if they want.
December 12th, 2017 at 4:27 PM ^
I think this is a good idea, but I know a lot of people that wouldn't want to give away their phone number just to get an "annonymous" account. Also, as other have mentioned below, it's easy to get a fake cell phone number on the internet now.
Here is my proposal: Make it so that you can't post for the first 30 days. Then once able to post, if their point total goes to -50 in the next 90 days, they get automatically banned and their posts disappear.
I think this would greatly reduce the requirement for mods to monitor 24/7, and would allow us "the people" to ban people in a short time period for some of the ridiculously inappropriate/trolling posts that appear. I do think that people would need to be careful of just downvoting due to "Joined" date (you're a perfect example) and guessing that it's someones second account though .
December 13th, 2017 at 5:59 PM ^
Double. Posting. Fail.
December 12th, 2017 at 5:36 PM ^
not so hard. I've got 8 of them
December 12th, 2017 at 2:17 PM ^
First world problems.
But I agree.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:20 PM ^
I'm a troll cuz I think our qb play has been bad and our safties shouldn't cove slot wr's. I'm ok with it though.
December 12th, 2017 at 2:24 PM ^
Were you one of the unacceptables?