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Lots of spam in the blogs latley — Parallax Forums

Lots of spam in the blogs latley

PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
edited 2013-07-26 23:57 in General Discussion
Anyone noticed that? 15 today at least.

I try to report all the spams, but I hate waiting 60 seconds to report the next one.

Give me the bullet and I'll pull the trigger on them :)

Comments

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2013-07-24 17:08
    Make that 16, pal! :)

    attachment.php?attachmentid=103002&d=1374710867
    Spam.jpg
    500 x 514 - 49K
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2013-07-24 17:08
    Dave James usually eradicates blog spam before anyone else sees it. AFAIK he's the only moderator that can do it, and he's been away. So it may just be a case of spam latency that makes it look like more is coming in.

    -Phil
  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    edited 2013-07-24 17:24
    I have reported alot of it lately - usually in the morning E.S.T. and it seems like it goes away after I've noticed Mike Green on-line. I thought he might be purging it...
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2013-07-24 18:52
    Yep, in the last few days, I've been typically purging 15 to 30 blog spam a day. It's tedious because there's not a simple way to do it unlike with forum spam. I've been very busy lately with my "real job" and this has become a low priority. I suspect this will get worse until and unless Parallax can either add something to the forum software to make this easier or make creating a new user ID harder for spambots or maybe shut down the blog for a period of time
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,451
    edited 2013-07-24 19:01
    Yikes. The whole first page is obvious spam. Granted it's 9 PM but that's only 7 PM Parallax time. Gonna have to get some kind of control on that quick or the feature will just become useless.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2013-07-24 20:57
    How about a super fund to locate and eliminate spammers? I would contribute.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2013-07-24 21:25
    Okay, 'looks like Mike's got it covered. Thanks, Mike!

    -Phil
  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2013-07-24 21:48
    Not really Phil. It's not a good use of my time and I'm very busy with "real work" for another week or two.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2013-07-24 23:00
    Mike, 'sorry to hear that it's being so intrusive. It's a puzzle that more moderators can't be assigned to certain areas that Dave -- and you, apparently -- are stuck covering. My own moderation powers don't even cover all of the forum, which is frustrating when I see spam and can't do anything about it, except to alert someone else.

    -Phil
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2013-07-25 04:58
    Why not add a 'Parallax-oriented' CAPTCHA?

    Instead of displaying some sort of messed up graphic, post questions:
    Which year was Parallax founded?
    What is the name of the quadcopter sold by Parallax?

    Stuff that any Parallaxian should know by heart, or at least should be able to find quickly on the main website...
  • teganburnsteganburns Posts: 134
    edited 2013-07-26 13:08
    Gadgetman wrote: »
    Why not add a 'Parallax-oriented' CAPTCHA?

    Instead of displaying some sort of messed up graphic, post questions:
    Which year was Parallax founded?
    What is the name of the quadcopter sold by Parallax?

    Stuff that any Parallaxian should know by heart, or at least should be able to find quickly on the main website...

    That's a really good idea, I think active member should be exempt from this though.
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2013-07-26 13:38
    Gadgetman wrote: »
    Why not add a 'Parallax-oriented' CAPTCHA?

    Instead of displaying some sort of messed up graphic, post questions:
    Which year was Parallax founded?
    What is the name of the quadcopter sold by Parallax?

    Stuff that any Parallaxian should know by heart, or at least should be able to find quickly on the main website...
    Unfortunately spammers figure that out very quickly. Manually. Then they distribute that info to their spambot setups.The only fool-proof anti-spam setup I've ever seen (as in: No spam, ever) is to automatically moderate first post(s) from newly registered users.

    -Tor
  • PublisonPublison Posts: 12,366
    edited 2013-07-26 13:49
    Tor wrote: »
    Unfortunately spammers figure that out very quickly. Manually. Then they distribute that info to their spambot setups.The only fool-proof anti-spam setup I've ever seen (as in: No spam, ever) is to automatically moderate first post(s) from newly registered users.

    -Tor

    I agree. I signed up last night to help keep the blogs clean I had to purge at least 25 spam blogs. Six this morning and three in the next hour.

    We will figure it out.

    Help is always appreciated.
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2013-07-26 14:22
    .. and a new spam blog post a few minutes ago (I hit the 'report' button on it)
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2013-07-26 15:33
    I got that one. One reason they were ramping up is that once Dave left they weren't handled as quickly (my fault) and the spammers notice when their posts and accounts aren't being handled and ramp up their efforts. Once we get a handle on things it should slow back down some.
  • GadgetmanGadgetman Posts: 2,436
    edited 2013-07-26 23:57
    Actually, unless the spammer is deliberately hitting on the this site, a simple non-obvious captcha is pretty effective.
    And even if he is, having alternate forms of the same questions, and a rotating set of them(so that 'new' questions appears weekly) will generally make it too much of a bother, and he leaves for easier pickings.

    Another thing that REALLY should be done is to add a META tag "REL = Nofollow" automatically to any links posted, or at least to posts made by 'new' users.
    While it won't hide the spam, it will at least stop search robots from indexing that link, thereby reducing the potential page rank of whatever site they're trying to 'promote'.
    (Spammers doesn't care if none of the members of the site ever reads the message or follows the links. It's all about page ranks)
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