Spam

arpeejay · #1 July 13th, 2007, 04:54 AM

There seems to be a lot of it these days, especially in this forum. I know that site management is a hard chore so staying on top of this stuff is never going to be easy. Maybe the General forum needs to be shut down for a bit in hopes it will go away? Not the ideal solution by any means but if it slows 'em down a bit...?

Many thanks for listening!

xoxo

Richard

ljobenza · #2 July 13th, 2007, 07:19 AM

Well the forum has no admins, mods and gmods. Flexodus runs the entire forum himself.

TeknoDave · #3 July 13th, 2007, 07:21 AM

Actually, he promoted me to a Mod earlier this week; optimusx is also a Mod, so I will try to help stay on top of the influx of spam to the best of my ability.

Optimusx has also been jumping on the spam bots that he has run into as well.

TheMM · #4 July 13th, 2007, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TeknoDave

Actually, he promoted me to a Mod earlier this week; optimusx is also a Mod, so I will try to help stay on top of the influx of spam to the best of my ability.

Optimusx has also been jumping on the spam bots that he has run into as well.

Congrats there Dave. I'm sure the trio of you can keep the spam down fairly quickly and all that good stuff.

TeknoDave · #5 July 13th, 2007, 09:57 AM

Thanks. I just 86'd 13 spammers this morning alone. I am talking with flexodus about other methods that can block them from the get-go.

There is definately a human element involved, as creating an account requires a visual confirmation of an embedded image, unless whoever creates these have found a work-around to that. Hmmm.

arpeejay · #6 July 13th, 2007, 11:32 AM

Dave:

Many thanks to you and Optimus for helping out with the group. I know Flexodus appreciates it and all the rest of us do, too!

xoxo

Richard

TheMM · #7 July 13th, 2007, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TeknoDave

Thanks. I just 86'd 13 spammers this morning alone. I am talking with flexodus about other methods that can block them from the get-go.

There is definately a human element involved, as creating an account requires a visual confirmation of an embedded image, unless whoever creates these have found a work-around to that. Hmmm.

I don't remember there being a picture to confirm making your account though. I guess that's been added at a time after I joined or I really just don't remember it.

I have thought of a few ways to stop spammers, but they're kinda drastic.

I'm not just talking about my ways though. Actually, I hope that maybe others might have ideas as well, I understand that flex is the admin also that tekno and optimus are the mods but we're all members so if you three run out of ideas, maybe the rest of us can help. (sorry if that sounded kinda bossy, it was hard to word what i met to say)

agreatguy6 · #8 July 14th, 2007, 01:49 AM

Come to think of it, I don't either.
But speaking of, there's LOTS of it in the off topic section.

I only noticed because I just posted a thread *nudge nudge*

ok, maybe not a lot, but more than usual.

omelissokomos · #9 July 14th, 2007, 04:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TeknoDave

There is definately a human element involved, as creating an account requires a visual confirmation of an embedded image, unless whoever creates these have found a work-around to that. Hmmm.

Overriding CAPTCHA systems is becoming easier or being outsourced.

Another issue is that with this site being available 24/7, some of the spamming happens when half the world's asleep while the other half sits back helplessly. It's a bit frustrating, to say the least.

In any case, it's great to see more guys helping flexodus out.

rextorres · #10 July 14th, 2007, 07:23 AM

You moderators get a BIG thank you from me!

I just closed my forum on my website because I got sick of all the spam. I was cleaning up the spam every day!

It was a very small forum and I didn't have any moderators, so it wasn't worth the time and the effort for me to have to go in every single day and have to clean up the daily pile of garbage that got inserted in my forum every single day. In fact, most of my spammers came from Japan and Thailand, and they attacked my forum when I was asleep at night. When I would get up in the morning, there would be a dozen new messages in the forum. They would create bogus accounts, log in, insert their messages, often with sexual pictures, and then delete their accounts. I would try, as forum Administrator, to ban their ip addresses, but that wouldn't help much.

I've owned and maintained a website since 1999 so I know exactly how much work it is to keep a forum like this up and running and clear from the spammers!

Keep up the good work!

ljobenza · #11 July 14th, 2007, 08:23 AM

Indeed, good to see the forum havind mods now. Congrats on the promotion TeknoDave and optimusx.

optimusx · #12 July 16th, 2007, 10:35 AM

CAPTCHA is basically worthless now. I've been considering some options to suggest to Flex, but most would require rescripting things. One of the most basic things we could do is require at least one post in an introduction forum or some other forum before allowing additional posts. Most of the Spambots place their first spam in the Off Topics General.

We do try to keep the spam down as much as possible, but when you've got a site that tends to target a unique sector of the population, you're going to draw spambots. And when you find one SPAMBOT, there are more.

OptimusX

Corwin · #13 July 16th, 2007, 10:56 AM

I think the introductory post is the way to go.

YAGS
(yet another geeky scott)