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Responding to spam posts ... — Parallax Forums

Responding to spam posts ...

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
edited 2017-09-19 04:02 in General Discussion
I'm really sick and tired of people in this forum who post to spam threads! Why encourage them? For heavens sake, just flag the thread as spam and move on. Your comments only encourage the spammers and serve no constructive purpose! Cripes, people, what are you thinking?!!!

-Phil

Comments

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Yeah, I should not have responded to "Canned Ravioli Saves the Day". Don't want to encourage them.

    Oh wait...

    :)

    I flagged a couple. Then realized it was an avalanche and gave up.


  • These accounts need to be closed. I thought I was on QVC seeing ad's for eye shadow etc.
  • @DigitalBob - These accounts are created with random names simply for a single spam post, which is why there are multiple accounts created and used within minutes of each other. They never expect to be able to use the same account again.

    Now...
    Isn't there a simple way that first time posters can be moderated? Surely it is simply a matter of holding the post until a moderator can check them. This wouldn't really inconvenience anyone and would stop these spammers in their tracks. It wouldn't really affect any genuine first time poster since they would have to wait anyway if they posted when the forum was quiet and the moderators were away.

  • I'm really sick and tired of people in this forum who post to spam threads! Why encourage them? For heavens sake, just flag the thread as spam and move on. Your comments only encourage the spammers and serve no constructive purpose! Cripes, people, what are you thinking?!!!

    -Phil

    Hello!
    And how does one go about flagging those annoying microcephalic postings as such? I did for example write an appropriate PM to Publison regarding those dolts, but that's all.

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Well, there is a "flag" link right under the posters name. Next to the posting date/time.
  • Heater. wrote: »
    I flagged a couple. Then realized it was an avalanche and gave up.


    An avalanche indeed! 23 of them in fact!

    All swept to the place they belong now.

  • One or more of these messages had a +1 vote. Maybe someone thought, that little triangle has to do something with flagging?
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    Not surprising. I accidentally hit the up vote button on one of them. You know, they are close together, very small on this screen, I'm half asleep and blurry eyed at the time.

    I then hit the down vote twice, not sure if it registered as such.

    Anyway, a spammer with a couple of dozen new accounts open could always up vote his own spam.


  • Heater. wrote: »
    Not surprising. I accidentally hit the up vote button on one of them.
    Ok... a perfect explanation...
    Heater. wrote: »
    You know, they are close together, very small on this screen, I'm half asleep and blurry eyed at the time.
    Yes... probably I can understand... I'm still fighting with switching from a 1024x768 notebook screen to a 1600x900ish one with higher DpI...
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2017-09-19 09:40
    Oh boy. Wait till you get to 2736x1824 on a screen that is only 12.3 inches. Like this Surface Pro 4. I'm endlessly having to dick around to get things scaled up to readability. It keeps insisting on forgetting what scaling I ordered. Grrr...
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    I'm really sick and tired of people in this forum who post to spam threads! Why encourage them? For heavens sake, just flag the thread as spam and move on. Your comments only encourage the spammers and serve no constructive purpose! Cripes, people, what are you thinking?!!!

    -Phil

    Sorry Phil, frustrated with over 100 spam emails that I had to sort through just before logging on the forum. Won't happen again.
  • I'm really sick and tired of people in this forum who post to spam threads! Why encourage them? For heavens sake, just flag the thread as spam and move on. Your comments only encourage the spammers and serve no constructive purpose! Cripes, people, what are you thinking?!!!

    As it was my post that you originally responded to (I think), I'll take a moment to address this. I am not encouraging anyone. The spammers are not targeting the forums because people reply to their posts. They are targeting the forum because the registration and posting can be easily scripted/automated. I think it's fairly safe to say that the spammers are totally unaware whether people are posting to those threads or not, as no human is doing the posting to start with.

    Incidentally, I do mark them as spam. And I really wish that something could be done to the forum (moderating new posters, registration captcha, marking spam removes the message until reviewed, flamethrowing robot that automatically hunts down the spammer, etc.) so that we don't have to deal with the spam in the first place. It is frustrating. And, in this case, I decided to not be frustrated about it, and instead made a joke of it. You apparently did not find humor in it, or maybe you were already frustrated by the presence of the spam. Either way, I believe your concern about encouraging the spammers by replying to their posts is misplaced.

  • The spam posts are driveby. The spammers never return to check on their posts, and in fact, few speak English to know what you're saying.

    The way to fix this is to pre-moderate the first post or two of any new member. However, this can be frustrating for new users who have a legitimate question, and is a special concern for any company trying to use their forums for customer service. The alternative, possibly requiring an addin for this forum, is to pre-moderate first posts but only apply to disallowing links.
  • Spam is going to happen. There is not going to be any upgrade to this particular forum. Having said that, there is Spam that is eradicated during the day and not even seen, because the are at least three Moderators monitoring for at least 16 hours a day. Europe, East coast, West coast. Today's Spams were not the normal and all came from Russia within a 3 hour period. There were all taken out in a very timely manner.

    You can trust the Moderators to keep on top of this issue. (And two of the three Moderators are not paid Parallax employees).
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    is to pre-moderate first posts but only apply to disallowing links.
    That's how it works on another forum where I'm a moderator. It does catch a lot of spam. But the bots have a way around that too - they first post without any links, and then immediately edit the post to add the links. That particular forum software doesn't catch that and leaves the post unmoderated.

    I second Seiarth's suggestion about the flamethrowing hunting robot.. make a global task force of it. I would support a kickstarter campaign if there's one..
  • Moderators check Whois and then against a Spam List when users first sign up. I check every hour or two. So many do not even get a chance to post Spam because they have been banned. It's manual preemptive, but only takes a few minutes to keep the forum clean. The Russian attack happen when all of us were sleeping.
  • Sorry if I came a little unglued. As a former moderator, seeing responses to spam posts is a pet peeve of mine. I'll try to be a little less "peevish" going forward... :)

    -Phil
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    I too, left a snarky reply to one spam post. I share Gordon's view that these posters are one-timers who never check back in, so any replies are moot, and the whole thread will be deleted soon anyway, If I'm wrong, please advise.
  • It's okay Phil. No really.

    On a series of groups I manage on this activity's former hosting place, I see such stuff that I've been tempted to turn in my card for each of them so many times I've lost count.

    Typically when new members join a specific group, I draft a message to the list listing what the list discusses most of the time, and what we'd like to hear about. From there I also add what one might be facing in his new job. And as it happens the mainframe environment is turning stranger and stranger as it gets older.

    I actually did toss out one bozo who refused to realize that the group manager, me, has the first authority to sign him up, and the last one, to throw him out. Now that happens perhaps once in a big oops, and that thankfully has not happened. However let's make this the last word on this subject.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    We obviously need a new system...

    Moderators should have an alarm bell that sounds every time a first post from a new registration occurs.

    They can then wake up, slide down a pole, in their pyjamas, to the lair where they keep their PC and deal with it.

    :)

  • Sorry if I came a little unglued. As a former moderator, seeing responses to spam posts is a pet peeve of mine. I'll try to be a little less "peevish" going forward... :)

    -Phil

    I'm sorry I did not even see the posts in question. It was the wee hours in the morning and our European sharpshooter got them all. I was just two hour behind, (5:00 AM).

  • GordonMcCombGordonMcComb Posts: 3,366
    edited 2017-09-19 18:55
    erco wrote: »
    these posters are one-timers who never check back in

    Most aren't one-timers, but they seldom check the spam posts they've left. In most cases it's the same group of people doing this. They're paid to leave X spam posts, and what happens after doesn't concern them. Since most don't speak English, or speak it poorly, it really doesn't matter if there are replies.

    The forum already doesn't give their posts page rank, as all the links are nofollow (in fact, too many are nofollow, even ones to internal pages -- Google doesn't really to like this and considered PR shaping grayhat, but that's not the subject here). However, they probably don't know that, and they're just leaving the posts because they've done a search and discovered this site uses a forum they can target.

    Having to manually look up IPs is time consuming. There are some tools for rejecting or pre-moderating based on country or browser language, but none are fool proof. The smart ones will get around this by using proxies. Still, every tumbler in the lock counts.

  • Courtney JacobsCourtney Jacobs Posts: 903
    edited 2017-09-19 19:04
    Parallax takes appropriate measures in software to ensure as little spam makes it through as possible.

    As nothing is 100% effective at this, moderators do a wonderful job at cleaning up the small amount that makes it through. They are also proactively preventing what else they can on an as-needed basis.

    Please appreciate the work they do, and continue to flag any spam content you see. It will be removed as soon as possible.

    If you would like to make a suggestion to webmaster about spam-prevention, please email directly to webmaster@parallax.com.

    Thank you.
This discussion has been closed.