Eliminating Spam on Ning
Updates
No one likes spam, especially us. It makes for a less-than-awesome Ning Network experience for members and makes a Network Creator’s life harder than it needs to be. While we’ve been building spam prevention into more and more elements of the Ning Platform, we’re constantly looking to drive more spam prevention projects that make Ning even better. Some of these projects are obvious and others are behind-the-scenes. Our ultimate goal is to eliminate spam on your Ning Network before it ever gets there.
In the obvious category of projects, we’ll be rolling out email verification and a new and improved CAPTCHA across Ning Networks next week.
New members on a Ning Network will now verify their email addresses when they sign up. After entering their email address, password, birthday and the CAPTCHA, they’ll be sent a verification email. By clicking a link in the email they receive, they can finish signing up for the Ning Network. Additionally, all current members will need to verify their email address once if they join a new Ning Network.
Here’s what members will see when they are asked to verify:
Just like the sign-up page, this new email verification page will be themed for the Ning Network. And, once an email address is confirmed on one Ning Network, it’s confirmed for all, which means this is a simple, one-time process. By ensuring that new members are signing up with email addresses they actually own, you can also be sure that your broadcast messages and other email notifications are reaching members.
We’re also improving our CAPTCHA system. The CAPTCHA is the code of numbers and letters that new members fill in to confirm that they’re real people on the sign up page.
Together, email verification and an improved CAPTCHA will go a long way in ensuring that members are real people who are going to contribute to the Ning Network in positive ways. If you have any questions about either of these improvements, please let us know in the comments or the Ning Help Center!
I have tried 3 or 4 times to sign up BUT NEVER receive an email verification to click on. Why? Can you fix this?
thanks,
Richard
I’m getting more spam than ever and have been forced to screen new sign-ups manually, which is really NOT the experience i wanted. people should be able to sign up and start interacting with my network immediately! it’s a bad first experience when they have to wait to be approved. with the spam issue, that experience is ruined. and if i allow automatic approvals, i get no less than 50 slog postings per day, that i thne have to take time to decline. this is really getting on my nerves and making me think i should move to a different system, like buddypress. why isn’t your solution above working?!?!
estoy eliminando mas de 500 spamer de todo el mes su sitema anti spam no sirve
solo el dia de hoy 8 de abril del 2010 en un lapso de 3 horas se registraron mas de 10 spame
su algoritmo anti spam no sirve ,hay que pensar como hacker no como progamador para porder resolver esto
It doesn’t go far enough … I want to be able to automatically scan posts to identify spam as I do on my wordpress blog … the algorithms are well known and could be implemented easily within Ning if you choose to.
More than 300 new bogus members joined our group in the past couple of weeks from gmail accounts. Since we never had a problem with spam before, we did not require moderator approval for new members. I’ve changed those settings as of yesterday. That action seems to have triggered the spam bot into hyperactivity — I’ve had to deny 70 new member requests during the past three hours.
I had the same problem. Since requiring members to indicate location or “About Me” as part of their sign up, I haven’t had any more auto sign-ups.
I have the same issue as Ramon and Bruce on this. The influx of spammers in the past few days has been enormous, as the bots must have broken down Ning securities. My members have been getting very angry.
I’m with Bruce on that. I have suspended about 200 hundred spam accounts just today!!
More than 100 blog posts have been added by these robots. There must be something wrong with the validation process.
Please update us on this issue.
We pay $35 per month to Ning every month. That’s $420 per year. …times two. For two different Ning networks.
Today, one of our Premium Ning sites was hit with 73 new SPAM postings… as Discussion Forum posts.
I don’t understand how this can happen, given that this blog post says that email addresses are now automatically verified…. and new accounts are blocked by Captcha.
What’s going wrong with spam security at Ning?
I was just testing… But when ever i sign up with new ID there is no verification mail sent, neither the members are stopped from signing in till the verification is done. Kindly let me know is it because i have kept the network as public? Awaiting your feedback.
Why not block messages and/or blog posts that contain keywords like “Canadian drugs” and whatnot. I’m fairly certain some of these are actual people unless bots can solve captchas now.
What about spam from ning sites themselves? I’m tired of recieving unsolicited invites from people i’ve never met for groups i could care less about.
Is there any fixes in the works for stopping the human spammers when they, sign up. Like making the intial questions have answers that can be verified?
This is Great News! Too many have been abusing the ning network and spamming others.
Thank You!
this make we more difficult to sign in..
why make this fellow…
I keep getting the email will be sent to you message box, but, in the last 8 hours and dozens of please resend, have yet to get the verification email. This is extremely frustrating
I’ve never had a spam problem but I’ve read where other sites on the network have so I don’t care about that if it helps everyone out I’m all for it.
One thing I am grateful for and I knew you would handle it is are the options of if you have changed your email address most verifications just will send the reset email to the old address if you don’t have it anymore than you’re screwed because that’s the only option unless you go to yahoo or something and get another email address.
So there are plenty of options so you won’t be on total lockdown/lockout. Some of the Capcha are so hard to make out when I see one I cringe because sometimes they are illegible.I’m glad we have the kind that’s easy to figure out.
But I have a member who signed on another site on the Ning network with her email. She can’t remember the site or the password and she keeps getting a message that her email is already on the Ning network but she isn’t registered with my site so she is locked out.
I said it in another blog post, and I will say it here. I can see where the Capcha makes perfect sense, and I say more power to that part of the upgrade. But, I still believe we should, As Network Creators, have the right to decide whether we want the email verification part of the upgrade to be a mandatory part of the network we create. Like I have stated already, network creators can ban a spammer rather easily and quickly. As Ning members, we also have the power to block any future messages from spammers so that they can never spam us again. Maybe some are lazy enough to not want to simply press a button to block a spammer, but than again they don’t need to be on a computer at all if they are that lazy.
This is great news!
But… it does’nt seem like it possible to edit this new verification message in the sign-up process.
Will we be able to edit this into our native language?
Hi Alex,
I understand your desire to help your members directly, but if a member hasn’t used a working email address and doesn’t remember their password, getting in touch with us via help.ning.com is the way to go; this actually isn’t different than the current system. Any time a member can’t sign in and can’t reset their password (for any number of reasons) they’ll need to contact us in the Ning Help Center, since as a Ning Network Creator, you aren’t able to access your members’ passwords or reset them on their behalf.
If you have specific follow up questions about how email verification will work on your Ning Network, feel free to drop us a note at help.ning.com.
Thanks!
Laura
Hi Alex,
If your members click the “Need to resend email” link, they’ll be taken to a page — also branded to match your Ning Network’s theme — that allows them to:
1. Change their email address (assuming they know the password)
2. Resend the verification email (there’s also a prompt to check spam folders here)
3. Contact the Ning Help Center if neither of these options work.
If your members are using working email addresses OR they remember their password so they can change their email address to a working one, they shouldn’t need to contact the Ning Help Center.
Thanks!
Laura
Hi J, Saf and Open Up!
The message will be sent in the language your Ning Network is displayed in. Additionally, it will be editable via the Language Editor, so you can customize the verification text if you like!
Thanks,
Laura
Thanks Guys… these are great improvements
Having a verified chance to connect with your new members via email is a HUGE advance.
I think it will be important to mention on the Verify Your Email page that people should look in the spam folder if they didn’t get the email. A lot of people have email setups that send massive amounts of email there, and that would save them a lot of confusion.
can this be edited via the language editor?
J
Hi Laura,
Thanks ffor answering and i really love this change….and it’s a really good step NING has taken into the right direction!
Right now i am experiencing very little activity on my social network because (i think) members change their emailadress into a fake one after signing up. But also i think they change their emailnotifications, because, when i send out a broadcast message, hardly anyone replies to it! Also when i write blogs or forumtopics, only 1 or 2% replies to new blogs or forumstuff because i think they change their emailsettings to not receiving any from the social network.
Maybe it would be a good idea to exclude email from the networks administrators or ‘special notices’ just like in Yahoogroups, so when we have special announcements EACH member receives this, regardless of their emailsettings.
But ok, ui am going off-topic here (LOL) , i like this change and i am glad we have now emailverification. When will this take place?
Thanks!
Zohra
Excellent news!
spammers have now more difficult to put trash in our networks.
Question: since when implementing this feature?
Thanks
Is this verification message translatable?
Hi Pankaj!
I totally see where you are coming from in terms of existing members needing to validate their email addresses. However, it’s a one-time, two-step process, and we think it’s ultimately worth it to make sure that members are using real, working email addresses.
If a member is having issues validating their email address, there’s a “help” link they’ll see, where they can contact the Ning Help Center to get assistance.
Thanks!
Laura
i don’t understand why old members need to go through this?
Also, if some one doesn’t then what would happen? –
1. would they be able to use the site or not
2. would there some message that would pop up
3. would they receive email notification about it , if yes from whom ?- Ning or NC what about paid guys…
4. if an old member doesn’t validate it would they still be able to receive the broadcast message
for new members it’s fine but for old guys it’s an additional hassle !
Kindly help !
Hi Brian,
The email verification feature is separate from any email notification settings or the ability to turn off messages. What Nick meant is that if your members actually have real, working emails, then they’ll be more likely to receive emails from your Ning Network.
To answer your second question — your members will need to verify their emails every time they change them. If you go through the process of changing your email on Ning.com, you can see how it works. It will be pretty similar to that, except themed for your Ning Network.
Thanks!
Laura
Another question: if our members verify their email first, and then later change it to an invalid email then what? Are they asked to verify their email each time the change it? I’m hoping yes 🙂
YEEESSSS !!! I’ve been praying for email verification for a long time and oddly enough the last few days I’ve come close several times to sending Ning support yet another request for this. Telepathy is now proven !!! :)))) ha ha.
There is one thing I do not understand in your announcement though:
“By ensuring that new members are signing up with email addresses they actually own, you can also be sure that your broadcast messages and other email notifications are reaching members.”
So you are removing the ability for members to turn off ALL emails from our networks? Or are you giving the broadcast message an override ability so we actually can “be sure that our broadcast message are reaching members” ?
(If you are affraid that NCs will spam their own members, you could always put a cap function in it so we can only send out a certain amount of broadcast messages each month.)
So I’m confused about this, can we or can we not, be sure that we can reach all members now?
Hey Zohra!
Every member will need to verify their email — new, old, approved, unapproved, etc.
Thanks!
Laura
This is just GREAT, wonderful news… however, i didnt have a lot of spammers on my network, because i approve all members one by one… however, this is great for those ‘dummy’ members who try to join our social networks with fake emailadresses, so this way we keep them out and have only REAL members, this is great progress NING!
Does tis emailverification also count for members we approve by hand or just for members who join the social networks automatically without approving them?
Thanks,
Zohra
UPS!
Most of my members (Danish website) Does not speak or read english. Is it possible for me to translate the information – before Ning will send to all our members???
This is a great idea! Keep up the good work
Yippee! Though I’m surprised to learn you didn’t already use email notification–that’s become such a must-have lately. This should help a lot!
Awesome! Long time coming