Reporting Spam

[westhemann]

I just wanted to say thanks to the guys who are taking the extra effort to report the spam,but also the guys who are posting "reported to mod" in the spam topic.you have no idea how much that helps...it keeps me from getting multiple p.m.s about the same topic and having my messenger fill up..

again ,thanks.

[Jon]

I can't even imagine how fast it fills up, some late nights there are 4-5 spam threads up.

[Primal]

Doh, I've never even thought about posting a notification in the thread about reporting it. Will do from now on.

[Samba Pa Ti]

lol thats good idea to put "reported" in the threads, i never thought of that, and i generally report spam if i see it.

[biliousfrog]

I'll be honest & say that I've never reported the spam threads because they're usually quite easy to spot & I can imagine how many messages the mods get about them. Putting "reported" into the thread is an excellent idea, the reason that I haven't reported any is that there's often already been lots of people that have viewed the thread...I'll now assume that unless it says "reported" or similar it hasn't been & I'll do it myself.

Thanks for the heads up Wes

BTW, I'm on the boards almost all the time at work from 8-6 GMT so if you need any extra spam thread killers I'd be happy to help.

[Petrol]

Does anybody have any idea on how we can cut down on the amount of spam cropping up? If anyone knows anything it may save us a little trouble. Thanks for the heads up, if I see any without a "reported" bit in it, I'll do so.

A small, obvious suggestion I guess is to never click on anything in the thread, any link. ALthough it may not only be harmful, I suspect (and have no idea if this is possible, but it wouldn't surprise me) that if they recieve any links from a board, they can track this, and subsequently post more junk here as they think they can get more linkage, so we become a target. However, i don't know this, merely a hypothesis. Could be the other way round, so

Pete

[biliousfrog]

I know that email spam is often used to test whether an email actually exists. For example, I use to have a "catch all" email address so I would get any emails sent to xxxxxxx@biliousfrog no matter what the first part was. If I was to respond to any of them the spammer would then know that it was a legitimate address & bombard it with more spam, virus's etc. I now have a few dedicated email address's & the problem is much less....only 30 spam emails today.

[Samba Pa Ti]

you can get a bot/script for the forums to stop clients that seem to be spambots but they are not 100% perfect and block normal users as well some times.

the only other way is to make it so every has to be verified manually but this isnt perfect either : ( since spambots have all different names and seem genuine..

[Samba Pa Ti]

just noticed some of the spam lately (its repeat offenders) wouldnt it be a good idea to ban them from posting new topics if they have made spam topics (or delete their forum accounts).

this may already happen, i just noticed 2-3 of the spambots had posted a few times.

[Setch]

There have been a few repeat spammers, but they are mostly posted in a short spell of time, in a few different sections. All spammers have their posting ability suspended indefinately when their threads are removed, but sometimes they post several times before they're busted.

[Rick500]

np... I'm a mod on another forum and I know how annoying it can get.