No more inquiry spam

[p206ab]

Hi all,

I've been thinking about making a plugin for ad inquiries (messages), as from time to time some spammers arrive and send a couple 10 messages to my users before I'm able to stop them via either email or ip ban.
What I will be trying to achieve is basically edit the send function, so the inquiry does not get sent directly to the seller, but instead, it is saved in database and visible in admin menu. Only until admin confirms the message in admin panel, then it gets sent to seller's email. And removed from database so this table does not make your db enormous.

What do you all think? It's additional work for admins, but it sure makes better user experience as sellers get only relevant and serious inquiries, not the ones in form "how much is this item"..

For now I find that the magic happens in contact controller in oc-includes, so I will start there.
Any useful tips and improvement ideas are welcome.

[marius-ciclistu]

Hi.Personally, I think it is not a good idea to act as a prison guardian  regarding the letters being sent. Each user must deal with it's potential sellers by marking their email address as spam for example or reporting them to the admin.

[fre2mansur]

Hi,
You can use PM Chat system instead of using contact form. and register user can pm to the seller. they can chat about ads. if they spam. you can remove from user list.

[p206ab]

Hi,
You can use PM Chat system instead of using contact form. and register user can pm to the seller. they can chat about ads. if they spam. you can remove from user list.

Thanks, but that's quite the same, because I can block the user after he spams via chat and only after I'm informed about that by a seller. I can do the same for email inquiries - block email or IP the email was sent from. The damage is already done.
What I'm looking for is to prevent these at all. So my users don't even receive messages like this and have negative experience with my marketplace.

[xop32]

instead of waiting for admin to approve the messages why not store them and run some sort of test on them

example

spammer comes along and sends 5 - 10 messages in 2 mintues - class this as spam

a real user comes along and sends a message - normal - this can go threw

USE SOME RULES:

you could define just some basic rules which all messages  could be validated against

maybe run a cron every hour, 4 hours, daily to process the messages

 

[Resta]

p206ab,

I would be very interested in this if you or someone can make this plugin. If you have run websites you know this is a huge problem and by the time you disable the account, they are already done spamming hundreds of users (usually overnight). I like the idea of xop32 to automate the process but you can do both or leave the review option to the admin to decide ie. admin will review or leave it automated.  The other simple approach is to set/limit the amount of contact emails a user can send by default to say 2 or 3 or 5 per hour/day, etc., in the user account profile but admin can override the amount by updating the user profile for some users.  For the most part and for most websites with normal traffic, regular users don't send more than 3-4 emails during any visit (if at all - usually 1-2).  So, more than 5 emails are usually a spammer.  If they are verified or paid user or something then admin can set a higher limit in their profile based on their trust or plan. If the number of emails sent can be calculated then a function could be added to More Edit plugin to do this also or integrate with the free Spam Protection plugin by Liath.

TIA! 

[p206ab]

I've made the plugin and it's currently in review at Osclass Market, hopefully it will be available soon.
For now it's all manual, so inquiries does not get sent to sellers directly, but rather stored temporarily in a database. Then admin has a panel to see all the inquiries and approves or rejects individual inquiry.
There are a few useful tricks already added (click to search email) with more coming later on with updates, if deemed necessary.

It takes a few minutes more of my day, but it surely pays off as I prevented many "viagra, how much is this item" and similar emails in the past days. 

[Aficionado]

I've made the plugin and it's currently in review at Osclass Market, hopefully it will be available soon.
For now it's all manual, so inquiries does not get sent to sellers directly, but rather stored temporarily in a database. Then admin has a panel to see all the inquiries and approves or rejects individual inquiry.
There are a few useful tricks already added (click to search email) with more coming later on with updates, if deemed necessary.

It takes a few minutes more of my day, but it surely pays off as I prevented many "viagra, how much is this item" and similar emails in the past days. 

Does the plugin inform via email the admin everytime such a moderation is needed  ?

[p206ab]

I've made the plugin and it's currently in review at Osclass Market, hopefully it will be available soon.
For now it's all manual, so inquiries does not get sent to sellers directly, but rather stored temporarily in a database. Then admin has a panel to see all the inquiries and approves or rejects individual inquiry.
There are a few useful tricks already added (click to search email) with more coming later on with updates, if deemed necessary.

It takes a few minutes more of my day, but it surely pays off as I prevented many "viagra, how much is this item" and similar emails in the past days. 

Does the plugin inform via email the admin everytime such a moderation is needed  ?

The current version does not have this option, as it would be quite spammy for some sites which receive hundreds of inquiries daily, but I do agree, that for some could be useful, so I will think about including checkbox to select this option or not in the update.

[Aficionado]

The current version does not have this option, as it would be quite spammy for some sites which receive hundreds of inquiries daily, but I do agree, that for some could be useful, so I will think about including checkbox to select this option or not in the update.

I understand what you say. Still it could send an alert to the admin for moderation ONCE for each user for example?

Or check the admins last login and decide to send or not an alert ...


Or something like that.

[Resta]

p206ab,

If this plugin doesn't keep track of users or does not count stats of email inquiries sent per ad, then I recommend that you work towards making this plugin work with the contact stats counter plugin that is freely available in the market. Thanks!

[p206ab]

p206ab,

If this plugin keep track of users or does not count stats of email inquiries sent per ad, then I recommend that you work towards making this plugin work with the contact stats counter plugin that is freely available in the market. Thanks!

The contact stats plugin works normally while using this plugin. They are not connected in the way that stats could be seen in Inquiry Mod plugin, because I wouldn't want to steal someone's work and add it to mine of course, but they are counted in stats panel and below each ad normally as intended by the contact stats plugin.

[Resta]

ok, as long as the contact stats continues to count the inquiries per ad, it is all good.