Spammers - What to do about them

[Waspie_Dwarf]

I realise that spammers are extremely irritating to most members of this site, making a post in a thread started by a spammer is a pointless exercise as it will only be deleted with the spam.

If you find spam rather than wasting your time making a soon to be deleted post it would be far more helpful if you could press the report button at the bottom of the post. This will alert the moderators and we will be able to delete the offending post with greater speed.

Thank you.

[00000000000000000000000000]

Agreed. It should be noted however that when a post is deleted, it's not deducted from the user's post count. People post in spam threads just to pad post counts, as far as I know.

And while that's of dubious morality, technically the entire Community Board does the same thing.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

People post in spam threads just to pad post counts, as far as I know..

That is quite possible, however people that do that should be aware that such posts are themselves considered spam. From the forum rules:

1. No 'spam' - What constitutes 'spam' includes the posting of unsolicited advertisements for other websites, products or services without permission, flooding the forum with identical topics or posts or posting large numbers of 'trash' posts. Members may include a link to their own web site in their signature or use the "your website URL" profile field, however registering solely to advertise such a link is disallowed.

I'm of a more charitable disposition however. I believe that some of those that post in these threads are demonstrating their displeasure or think that pointing out spam with a post helps identify it. However they frequently make it harder rather than easier for the moderators to find spam.

[Tillghast]

Sometimes, it's good to vent in spam threads.

[Rahl]

sometimes, a lot of activity goes on in spam threads ,, knowing that what you say is going to be deleted soon anyway , so people do vent, yes .. and maybe make a few risque jokes they wouldnt normally do ...so they do serve some purpose , , but nobody really takes much notice of the original spam message .

[Saru]

The message we're trying to get across is to hit the 'report' button for spam threads, whether or not you intend to post a reply to it, so that we can remove the spam thread as soon as possible.

I've seen some people post responses like "a moderator is going to delete this" or "where are the mods when you need them", instead of actually reporting it. Clicking the report button takes literally seconds and really helps us to remove forum spam fast.

[Rahl]

The message we're trying to get across is to hit the 'report' button for spam threads, whether or not you intend to post a reply to it, so that we can remove the spam thread as soon as possible.

I've seen some people post responses like "a moderator is going to delete this" or "where are the mods when you need them", instead of actually reporting it. Clicking the report button takes literally seconds and really helps us to remove forum spam fast.

maybe if you said it'd get deleted in 15 mins rather than straight away would help , just to give the spam thread ventors a chance to do what they have to do rather than imminent mid sentence death ...

and also, because these spam threads are so heavily used , people are reluctant to report it and cause others to be cut off mid sentence etc, but if there was a 15 min or even 5 min warning, then people would happily say , ok, thread is reported, you have 5 mins to say what you want to say and then mods will be deleting thread .

Edited November 22, 2006 by Rahl

[truethat]

Since this is a spam thread please come visit me at the grotto! Click on the link below to visit!

Edited November 22, 2006 by truethat

[Michelle]

truethat...

Rahl, I think you may have missed the point. The spams that are being refered to, as far as I'm aware, are mostly porn or how to obtain drugs, both of which are unsuitable for the family environment that UM is trying to maintain. There are many young members that don't need to be exposed to this.

[Rahl]

truethat...

Rahl, I think you may have missed the point. The spams that are being refered to, as far as I'm aware, are mostly porn or how to obtain drugs, both of which are unsuitable for the family environment that UM is trying to maintain. There are many young members that don't need to be exposed to this.

Well no more can be done by the administators of the site above providing the report button and relying on people to use it, the question seems to be how best to faciltate people into actually using this report , evidently it is not working as it ought, hence this thread , so my suggestion are there as an idea as a way to maybe increase the likelihood the report button will be pressed. In an ideal world, of course all pornographic spam would be immediately zapped in milliseconds , but its not an ideal world we live in and we still need to rely on the report function .

The idea , regardless of the type of spam it is, is to increase the chance the report button is pressed , you cannot get on a high horse and preach about the evils of certain types of spam and then go and cherry pick the type of spam that you think ought to be treated differently , because it wont, all spam needs to be treated with a universal method , and that method is what is under discussion here .

Edited November 22, 2006 by Rahl

[Michelle]

It seems to me you are the one on the high horse, Rohl...these are not my rules.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

The rules are simple... No spam.

These spammer register just to post adverts which are frequently totally unsuitable for a site like this.

The point being made here is that there are members of this site that will post a comment such as "where is a moderator when you need one?" but who can't actually be bothered to report the spam themselves.

If these people are so irritated by spam that they feel the need to express their displeasure the least they can do is help the moderators remove it by taking a few seconds to report it.

The rules on spamming are non-negotiable.

[the rebirth]

i dont see why people feel better about themselves by having a higher post count than someone else. quality over quantity people...

[rassy]

ok, so if I see a spam, I'll hit the report button. Veddy easy stuff. Only, I don't ever recall running into spam whilst perusing the threads.

[Tillghast]

Spam is very rare to my knowledge, I have only seen one thread.

[SilverCougar]

Actually, I find posting in spam threads theraputic... I actually don't care about my post count. (As Lel will tell you, I was disgruntled about a grats thread about whatever number I reached.. meh, *who cares*)

But hey, if posting cute kitties and being silly is a nono in spam threads then fine. *shrugs* No more of it.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Spam is very rare to my knowledge, I have only seen one thread.

If only! Spam is very common and some of it is vile. The fact you see so little of it shows what a good job the moderators do .

But hey, if posting cute kitties and being silly is a nono in spam threads then fine. *shrugs* No more of it.

If it makes you feel better carry on, but if you could hit the report button as well it would be very helpful.

Something I should have said in my first post:

Thank you to all those members that do report spam and other problems. It helps the moderators immensely.

[Guest Lottie]

Tillghast, Trust us UM gets spammed . As you are aware it's one of the largest forums on the web with a very large user base, it's spammers paradise for free advertising... It's just that we, the Mod team are very quick and very good at deleting and spotting them before most of the regular users ever see such.

ut hey, if posting cute kitties and being silly is a nono in spam threads then fine. *shrugs* No more of it.

The problem is SC the longer the spam thread is on the board the more hits the link to the site is going to get. By posting on the thread it keeps it up for that bit longer which in turns promotes the spammers site. Not only that but as has been said most of these sites are illegal and alot nasty in content. Not what you want anyone seeing let alone the younger members.

It would be much faster to hit the report button and get these cheeky irritating twerps out of the forum and stop them sponging Um of bandwidth and advertising purposes.

Edited November 24, 2006 by Lottie

[Silentom]

It would be much faster to hit the report button and get these cheeky irritating twerps out of the forum and stop them sponging Um of bandwidth and advertising purposes.

I really havent seen much of it myself YET!

But I do agree with this! i hate nasty spamming it's nonsense.

So YES click the report button

[girty1600]

I've logged on to UM, clicked on "New Posts" and found spam threads on the 4th page.

I might post something sarcastic once in awhile but I always report. "Girty the squealer" aka "the tattle-tale", that's me according to some.

[Trinitrotoluene]

Have you considered configuring it so that people can't post links for the first 10 posts or something? I've seen an invision mod around somewhere that does that. Alternatively, you can set it so that peoples first post has to be in new members introduction before they can post elsewhere. Just a few ideas

[Saru]

Restricting access the forum is not really a solution, we don't want to penalise the vast majority of genuine new members for the sake of a small handful of spammers.

There will be additional anti-spammer options available in the next version of Invision Board, and due to the closeness of it's release it wouldn't be worth implementing any modifications to that end at the moment anyway.

[Trinitrotoluene]

Oooh top. Didn't know IBP 2.2 had extra spam security, I'll have to look that up. I hope they improve the JCAPTCHA response, then again I hate those things cause I can never tell whether it's a 0 or a o if they don't put a line through it

Edited November 24, 2006 by Gavsto

[Saru]

I believe the CAPTCHA is being improved upon in 2.2

[Grandpa Greenman]

Reporting spam is fun, you just click the report button, write spam in the little box and low and behold it is gone within a few moments. It is like magic, makes me feel all tingly inside.