Retiring from SPAM Cleanup

[arpeejay]

http://www.facebook.com/arpeejay

[Londonboy]

Richard! Thanks for all that you've done. I hope you are able to get back to reading and responding. You deserve a break.

I'd be willing to help, but I'd need a mentor to show me how!

Thanks for all that you do.

LB

[JeffXeno]

Richard,

I have no doubt that the Spot Cop job seemed a repetative, thankless one. Please know that I'm thankful for your efforts, and especially so for the repetitive nature.

Thank You,
Jeff

[mewletter]

Is it me or is the Spambots are getting more aggressive these days? Really need to find decent solutions to this pesky problems...

Anyway, here's a little video to cheer up!

Spam - Monty Python's Flying Circus - YouTube

[kezzz]

I've suggested before... A captcha would help with reducing spam...

[Gene]

Yeah, the spam is getting pretty bad. Not sure it's worth weeding through anymore.

Frankly I wouldn't object if the whole damn site were blown away and started over again from scratch with all forums requiring moderated membership. We've already lost all those wonderful images from years back.

This site has had a good run but I haven't seen a really good story, like in the old days, in a couple of years. The nature of the posts, stories and pictures has changed. Just another example that more and newer ain't necessarily better.

[WhoDunIt]

If you guys want, I'll give cleaning the spammer up a shot if you want. Seems like I'm always logging in right after they're posted at night.

[Lucas88]

I don't know if I'm on 20 times a day but I'm on a decent amount. I'd be happy to help out if someone wants to show me how.

Lucas

[bulgo]

Originally Posted by kezzz

I've suggested before... A captcha would help with reducing spam...

Captchas can easily be cracked and bypassed nowadays.
How bout Human Validation/Verification alternatives?

I've seen forums that implement something wherein users are required to answer certain questions (such as simple mathematical equations) rather than just typing the code.
These questions are random too.

[msclbldr]

Richard, Thanks for your efforts.
I would be happy to do my bit de-spamming if someone would explain the process to me.

[vga518]

Likewise, thanks for the hard work and I'd also volunteer to clean up if it's explained.

[JeffXeno]

I guess I need to offer to help as well, as I can see now that without a Spot Cop, this place will quickly become useless to everyone, with unread message indicators seldom meaning little more than new Spam has arrived.

Jeff

[Lucas88]

So...how do we do this? They're going NUTS today!

[vga518]

Well if we can get 14 volunteers then the work could be split between 2 pairs for each day.

[Lucas88]

I'm thinking a little more mechanically...who has to grant what access and show us how to do it? Scheduling days is a level of administration I don't know that we need. Considering I've only notice 2 guys going it for most of the summer, I'd settle for 3 or 4 relatively active members so no one gets burnt out like Richard.

[arpeejay]

http://www.facebook.com/arpeejay

[cutlerfan]

Thanks for all your hard work RPJ! I suppose if I knew how to handle spam I could try.

[Lucas88]

Originally Posted by arpeejay

By the way:

My internet connection was down all day today (until 7 p.m.) so I've only just started catching up. I'll zap what I can.

Flexodus is the site owner / administrator. He's the only one who can deal with spam issues on a macro level. On the other hand, it is possible for him to enable surrogates to employ the "one touch ban and clean" option, which allows one to eliminate individual spam accounts (including all threads / posts created by that account in one swell foop!)

It's my understanding that several other people already have the ability (besides me) but I seem to catch the brunt of it, mostly because I'm a stay at home and I check the site many times a day.

xoxo

Richard

What's the best way to contact Flexodus? Don't see him on much.

[Yachirobi]

I'm more than willing to help delete spam.

That said, I also think that, if possible, it would be worth it to restart the board on a new system that is more spam-proof. vBulletin is very vulnerable to spam and, because of this, there is little that Flexodus or anyone can do.

[raven79]

I guess I have to agree with everyone here that this forum needs to be put on another service. It will be ten years old next year and that would be a great time to do it.

[JeffXeno]

FleXodus just made some changes to the user verification system to see if that will slowdown the Spam bots. He explained it in the off-topic area.

Jeff

[racecar]

Thanks to everyone who's helping keep the spam down!

[Yachirobi]

And now our newest spambot Fieque is reinforcing RPJ's retirement! Ah ha ha ha ha ha STOP THE MADNESS.