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What's with all these Thare598 posts???

Big R

I keep reporting its posts. Let's bump some threads ....

there were a couple very similar posts a few days ago

It happens on US holidays. The 'super' trolls, and spam bot kiddies have nothing better to do.

If something gets through, then please flag. We will clean the shit as quick as possible.

H.

That's what I figured Husker, somebody just jackin us around, didn't much link it to the holiday tho. Figured some a ya would get to it eventually, h*** ya all got lives too...

Big R

I've understood the spammer's end goal. They're not exactly winning over customers by harassing folks carrying on with their tasks at hand.

Its all a numbers game. For many of them, they do not care IF anyone from this site visits any of their links. What they care about is that GOOGLE see's their links, thus kicking their site higher in google ratings.

A decent volume site like this one is prime target. Many of this size do not have good administration, and spam links are allowed to stay. The really high volume sites are what these vermin really want, but they know that links will not last long at all.

On this site, we try to scrub them as soon as possible. Also, spam bots that simply sign up to get a user account, and to put a web site on that user account are scrubbed quickly. We have implemented a 1 post queue which requires moderator to OK the post. This keeps almost all of the spam off view from public. Moderators still have to scrub it, but it does not make it to public view. Of the crap you folks see, there is 10x (or 30x) that we handle behind the curtain.

H.

Husker wrote:Its all a numbers game. For many of them, they do not care IF anyone from this site visits any of their links. What they care about is that GOOGLE see's their links, thus kicking their site higher in google ratings.

A decent volume site like this one is prime target. Many of this size do not have good administration, and spam links are allowed to stay. The really high volume sites are what these vermin really want, but they know that links will not last long at all.

On this site, we try to scrub them as soon as possible. Also, spam bots that simply sign up to get a user account, and to put a web site on that user account are scrubbed quickly. We have implemented a 1 post queue which requires moderator to OK the post. This keeps almost all of the spam off view from public. Moderators still have to scrub it, but it does not make it to public view. Of the crap you folks see, there is 10x (or 30x) that we handle behind the curtain.

H.

is this why the meteoric rise in new members came to an abrupt halt after tater dumped the trash a while back? cob

Never realized, makes me appreciate our Mods a whole lot more.

Thx guys!

Big R

mods/admins: does reporting help...?

also, could the reporting default be set to NOT get email...?

Looks like a lot of new ones from a gosale888. I sent Husker a pm and did not open them as I did not want to get hit just a word of warning look at the title of the thread and in what catagory it has been posted before opening this might help you determine if you think it is spam!

It may be that there is a new bug discovered by the spammers, that allows them to create an account, and post without going through the moderation queue for a first post. I am going to look into this today. Of the 8 or 10 that have gotten through over the past weekend, I can find no where that they every had a post OK'd by a mod. There must be some hole in the forum software they are using.

I think for now, until I figure things out, the CAPTCHA is going back on.

H.

Husker wrote:It may be that there is a new bug discovered by the spammers, that allows them to create an account, and post without going through the moderation queue for a first post. I am going to look into this today. Of the 8 or 10 that have gotten through over the past weekend, I can find no where that they every had a post OK'd by a mod. There must be some hole in the forum software they are using.

I think for now, until I figure things out, the CAPTCHA is going back on.

H.

captcha for new accounts is no bother, most forums do it...

are "Report this post" reports useful, or do they just make things you have to look at...?

The reports are very useful. You do not have to spend a lot of time on the report, just list "SPAM" or something similar.

As as admin, I simply open one of those, go to the users profile. There is a button there that brings me to admin user. I think simply click on "delete user - delete all posts". One stop scrub job.

but when users report, it DOES get our attention quickly. When I view all 'new posts', the flagged ones have a bright red '!' on them, and stand out.

I am in the process of scrubbing some obvious, and also some 'probably' bogus accounts. Hopefully this posting will stop soon. If not, then we will likely need to upgrade the forum software, and see if there is some bug allowing these vermin to get through. It can be several things, however. One, is they know account get scrubbed that just signed up, and start spamming. Often, they will add a bunch of accounts, and then let them sit a while, and then can use them one after the other, and when one gets scrubbed, use the next one in line. That is why I am dumping accounts that 'look' wrong. If this is what they are doing, I will dry up their supply.

H.

google ranks pages by how many other pages link to it.
so they really don't care if we see it or click on the link, they only care that the link goes unnoticed for long enough for the googlebots to save it to memory.

violentblue wrote:google ranks pages by how many other pages link to it.
so they really don't care if we see it or click on the link, they only care that the link goes unnoticed for long enough for the googlebots to save it to memory.

exactly. That is why as admin's we smoke garbage accounts quick, and do not approve posts.

Stupid thing about these fools, is that google does not spider user account information on phpbb (if setup 'properly'). HD is setup properly. Many of these vermin setup a junk account, and add a signature (which is never seen unless they post), and a WWW page, and all the other page links, like AIM, YIM, etc, etc. Well, if the bots are not servered any pages from the user control panel, and they never post, then those links never get seen. But the idiot auto spam signup robots still build scads of these garbage auto accounts.

At least in phpbb it does not take 'too' much admin time to scrub these vermin.

H.

you implemented black list subscription yet...?