Increase in Spam

[Michael M]

Hi All
I've noticed a significant increase in Spam posts lately, which got me to wondering.
Is it possible to either increase the Mods OR give restricted abilities for a number of posters to be able to eliminate the spammers as soon as they appear.....I guess I'm thinking out loud 'cause the **** things annoy the hell out of me, and I feel personally violated when these mongrels enter a friendly / helpful / forum, simply to create chaos.......Grrrrr !!!

 

[SuperFerret]

I know what you mean, especially when they add to the bottom of someones thread with a:

"Great thread! Haha, brilliant! Sellmesomething Anotherstupidhyperlink Andanotherforgoodmeasure"

Very annoying

 

[VoG]

Yes, very annoying and it does appear to be getting worse

 

[Michael M]

I noted the other day one of the spammers actually stated the poster had done a bad job of explaining themselves...which is really embarrassing for us that respond, and the forum itself.
In fact I think it was one you had responded to Peter.
Geez, just talking about it gets me fired up.....I guess I'm a bit more annoyed than most , as some time ago it took down a golfing forum I was involved with....simply because they web masters didn't have the resources to control it !!!!

 

[diddi]

i have found the same is happening in newsgroups at the moment too GRRR.

i agree with the idea of having members with 'special powers' to ban spammers. its a bit like dealing with grafitti, if you keep nipping it in the bud, the perpetrators get tired and go elsewhere.

perhaps someone might like to mail bomb them. lol

 

[Michael M]

Hi P
Hmm, now there's an idea.....I bet MrExcel would love to be the sender.....Not !!!
You make a good point about the graffiti though.

 

[MrKowz]

Spammers are going to happen wherever there is high traffic, and these forums have definitely seen an increase in overall traffic in the recent month or two. I know the mods initially tried to combat spammers by removing signature abilities from "New Members", but this doesn't seem to help at all; the spammers just enter in some bupkus message, hit enter a few times, draw a ___________________, and put their links under their message.

Really, the only thing we can do is when we see a spammer, report the post. What I do when I see someone spam is report the post with the word "Spam"; then I click on their name and "Find More Posts by name"; then I find every one of their posts and report them (there is a 60sec wait between being able to report posts, so it might take you a few min to report them all).

We have quite a few active moderators on the forums here, and these spam posts seem to get removed within 10-15 min of being reported. There isn't any more added security that I can see would be helpful, because adding in things like catchpas, moderator-approval for first x posts, or anything like that would be both invasive and easy to get around. These spammers do not seem to be bot accounts, but rather people who are logically posting.

That being said... yes, it is annoying, and I take offense to these spammers when they plague our forums. I always dread one of the users taking the bait and blaming the forums. What I am going to start doing is, along with reporting the posts, reply to the message with a simple "The above is a spam account. Do not click on any links or attempt to contact the above poster."

Cheers!

 

[Michael M]

I like the idea

"The above is a spam account. Do not click on any links or attempt to contact the above poster."

I was thinking along the lines of being able to send the post to a "junk" area for the Mods to adjudicate.
Don't get the idea I'm placing any blame on the Mods, they do a great job.....but the sooner the spammer knows their post has gone the better.

 

[Jon von der Heyden]

I haven't been around lately but... Experience tells me we get hit by waves of spam. We have a nice quiet spell and then WHAM we get hit by loads!

Not sure what the take is on whether or not we need more mods. I can't comment on the last fortnight but generally we pick up the spam within minutes and ban the spammers. Spam has a very short life at this forum compared with many others. Reporting spam is greatly appreciated though.

 

[RoryA]

What I am going to start doing is, along with reporting the posts, reply to the message with a simple "The above is a spam account. Do not click on any links or attempt to contact the above poster."

Don't do that. It makes for more cleanup work and annoys the mods. (I used to add 'Reported' after each one until Tracy told me it created more work for them)
Also, assuming this board works the same way as other vBulletin boards, it's a one click thing to delete all that spammer's posts, so you only need to report one of them.