Open a spam subforum?

[carlsson]

As suggested by one of the spammers last week, if the forum has a section designated for spammers, most serious spammers (yes, I know it is an oxymoron) will post their messages there instead of flooding a dozen other areas. Recently, almost all spam posts seem to end up in Off-Topic Marketplace, which may look like the closest place for random spam to appear.

My thought was if there is a Spam section, maybe the forum software can be set up to automatically empty it every second hour or so. Spammers would get their reward of posting the garbage in yet another forum, the moderators would get their reward of not needing to remove spam and ban users in the middle of the night (exaggeration), the rest of us users would get our reward of not needing to report trivial spamming. Does anyone else think that it would work, or is it naïve optimism that bots and people posting spam navigate their way to the most suitable area before posting?

 

[nige the hippy]

Sounds great, but what about those of us who REALLY DO need Viagra?:shock:

 

[Vlad]

Sounds like a bad idea to me. We might go to a system where we have to approve requests for new members. Or somthing like that.

-VK

 

[UncleBinary]

I think that a person who volunteeres (I volunteer) should delete the spam in the forums.Im on a lot and always 9-11 p.m.

 

[Vlad]

There are 3 moderators and our Fearless Leader Erik (the admin) We've got it covered. Incase people don't know the mods are Terry Yager, mbbrutman, and myself. All of you have done an excellent job of reporting posts and we do the best we can to delete and ban when necessary. As of this time I do not believe it is that great of a problem, however there are measures in place should the problem become any worse. Vigilantism is hardly the answer to any conflict. We have all been monitoring the spam situation and will take the appropriate measures when they are needed.

-Vlad

 

[carlsson]

Yep, I was not totally serious when making the suggestion. But since at least one spammer claimed to follow "spam guidelines" regarding where they'd post (ignoring the fact that we don't want it in the first place), it could be a bit interesting to see if the flies could be attracted to the fly zapper instead of hunting them with a fly swap, if you see what I mean.

 

[chuckcmagee]

Spam so far has just been a nuisance. We can always go to a "new user verified first" system if it gets too bad.

 

[mbbrutman]

Honor among spamsters? Now I'm laughing ..

 

[atari2600a]

I don't believe the new user verification thing would work out too well. Alot of the people who come here just post a few times for technical assistance on their 20 year-old computer & then leave.

 

[UncleBinary]

I got an idea to keep spamming down to a minimum.For new members the first 5-10 posts must be approved by a moderator or admin.This acourse would rise the need for moderators but it should stop spamming.At least the impatient spammers.

 

[mbbrutman]

Or, from another point of view ..

We do a lot to keep the board spam free. That includes users as well ... the little yellow/red card icon on a post lets a user flag a post as suspect, and give us a more direct heads up that somebody is spamming or doing something stupid.

And even the mods get frustrated with the spam levels. Maybe Erik will chip in with a few comments about the 'pre-emptive strike capability' that we've been discussing amongst ourselves. Sounds like nuclear war, doesn't it?

But besides monitoring spam, mods also provide editorial guidance. The signal to noise ratio can fall to unacceptable levels if people aren't reminded to put some meaningful content in their posts occasionally. We don't deal with flame fests as much as we used to, but there is still a bit of finger waving/editing that goes on.

Pre-approving people is a lot of work too. Basically that means that to post here somebody has to vouch for you ahead of time. That restricts things too much.

 

[carlsson]

Yellow/red card? Looks like a triangular traffic warning sign which over here means "Other danger". I suppose inappropriate posts could be considered "other danger" to the forum.

 

[Vlad]

That what the Report this Post button is, the Red Triangle one. The Red/Yellow card is the Infraction system, only the mods can see that.

 

[ahm]

So really, what's the point of a spammer dumping a bunch of links here?
To try and give their site a better Google page rank?
Or is it something more nefarious?

 

[Erik]

So really, what's the point of a spammer dumping a bunch of links here?
To try and give their site a better Google page rank?
Or is it something more nefarious?

Mostly they are trying to generate traffic. Page ranks help and that's how they found this site, but the ads don't stick around long enough to be spidered anyway.

 

[grant]

Banning a spammer account will hardly help.

The forum called "General" is what the bots look for.

I run several of these boards so I'm aware of how annoying it is...

 

[grant]

Make sure user banning includes these...

If you want to get aggressive, make people "contact the admin" if they want to use a yahoo/gmail/hotmail/free account. That usually just makes a lot of confused people.

@fastmail
@web.de
@cashette.com
@mail.ru
@samsonbllinded.com
@cvde.com
@gawab.com
@2662165.com
@dredge-armature-loader.com
@cvhjk.com
@wwwfreemail.info
@peugeot-club.org
@tabsdrugstore.info
@civilrecordz1@arrestwarrents.info
@rbcmail.ru
@pop3.ru
@kloze.com
@meta.ua
@hotbox.ru
@gala.net

216.152.179.121
216.152.182.107
216.152.190.154
216.152.191.239
216.152.187.30
216.152.189.227
12.17.143.68
216.152.189.30
136.206.1.23
24.237.84.243
triband-del-59.177.30.7.bol.net.in
83.223.141.56
72.2.16.75
70.86.127.130
69.31.41.89
68.87.77.183
68.87.76.149
68.87.72.169
68.87.72.168
68.87.71.185
68.87.71.181
68.87.64.117
68.87.64.103
68.87.64.100
66.58.202.214
65.164.227.120
63.241.242.65
62.193.88.26
59.6.30.50
24.66.167.6
24.196.252.52
221.190.26.1
213.249.155.240
211.227.87.235
210.111.100.179
203.68.220.125
203.68.220.125
203.68.220.125
202.131.196.149
200.69.253.165
200.69.177.214
200.49.176.131
200.30.79.126
200.118.2.219
200.118.2.218
195.39.106.97
150.101.8.197
147.91.*
140.134.4.*
129.71.62.*
125.189.40.*
12.154.100.*
69.178.18.233
202.58.85.*
59.176.104.*

 

[carlsson]

Four more posts reported, all written in the "Off-Topic Marketplace" section. It really seems whoever puts these up, carefully locates a section of the forum where the spam will cause least disturbance. :bow2: