Why Is Spamming Out of Control on HC?

[bieke]

I think the mods are not doing an effective job

well a forum that has spam is a forum that is not being run properly

I visit bout 20 forums and this is the only forum I know that allows spam

 

most forums have anti spam addons, plugins, mods and whatnot

HC has nothing more than the image verification thingy, which is not doing much

the spammers are very effective

 

there are about 5 to 10 new spammers that sign up every day and they can post their spam without any problem

the spam messages stay visible for about 12 hours

and then the spam threads are erased and spammers are banned by the mods

 

of course it is easy to ignore spam messages

but it does affect user experience

but I just can't understand why HC is allowing this site to remain open to spammers

it pollutes the boards, spammers are also flooding the site with URLs and links to their spammy sites

HC gets a negative reputation by search engines for linking out to inappropriate sites

spam is ruining this place and every once in a while spammers are even allowed to turns it into a cesspool of spam threads

and the mods, well they have no effective tools to manage spam

they just clean up after the harm is done

has been going on for years now

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bieke]

phew, another spam attack, 5 pages of spam threads (from a meanwhile banned new member who is still shown as on line)

 

The sad reality is that if you add up the daily spam threads and the periodical spam attack threads, then there are actually more spam threads posted on this forum than on topic threads.

 

 

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

Bieke, Im online at 6AM every morning deleting spam and banning spammers… and I am usually hitting it sometime before going to bed at 11 or 12PM, but at bare minimum I check it before knocking off in the late afternoon (5 or 6PM), so unless they're putting the spam up at 0605 on a day I didn't check it late the night before, there's no way spam posts are staying up for 12 hours - especially if it's been reported / flagged.

 

I do agree that it would be nice to have better anti-spam tools though, but as far as that goes, every time we've ever put something new in in that respect to try to cut down the spammers (and we've tried multiple things since 2005 when I started here), it works only for a while, and then eventually the spammers find a way to work around it. Measure / countermeasure - it's the same old story.

[RoadRanger]

Nobody's EVER got by the "first posts are moderated" spam prevention on my forums. Dunno why youse guys can't get that turned on? I think there were about 150 spams in this one forum today just so far (I get notifications of new posts to this forum - yay that that finally works after a couple years of being broken.

[Mr.Grumpy]

My suggestion: just disable new posters with less than X posts from posting weblinks. Because the great majority of the spam posts I see are users with 1 or 2 posts, but they always have a weblink.

 

And....THANK YOU moderators and spam-deleters.

[Phil O'Keefe]

My suggestion: just disable new posters with less than X posts from posting weblinks. Because the great majority of the spam posts I see are users with 1 or 2 posts, but they always have a weblink.

 

Good suggestion. I don't know if that's doable with vB5 or not, but I'm going to check into it.

 

 

And....THANK YOU moderators and spam-deleters.

 

Thank you.

[Ernest Buckley]

Again, I don`t pretend to know anything about code that goes into this but I do not experience spam over at GS.

 

I hate to keep bringing GS up in posts but the truth is, that forum is well maintained, enjoys a ton of activity, and seems to have enough staff to keep it running smoothly.

 

It seems pretty simple to me... the first post needs to be approved my a mod. The user should not be able to post anything without some sort question that only a human can answer... something like... who is the current President of the US? or 2 + 3 =

 

I don`t know... seems simple enough.

 

And if I can be completely honest... this forum is dying a slow death... a very slow death. Most threads are spam, the second highest amount of new threads are started by mods who are doing their best to keep this forum going but in my humble opinion... its dead.

[bookumdano4]

Hey, just let everyone delete anyone else's posts. Problem solved. I'll know whether my posts are any good based on how long they actually stay up.

[bookumdano4]

I do not experience spam over at GS.

 

 

Well, there are some nights where a LOT of spam gets up on the computers section of GS. Not for very long though. I'll tell ya the forum that died years ago and won't go dark.. Northern Sounds. Vi Control killed NS but I don't think NS ever got the memo.

 

Anyway, from a nostalgia point of view, I like coming back here to see what's going on... even if it's not all that much.

 

[RoadRanger]

Hey, just let everyone delete anyone else's posts. Problem solved. I'll know whether my posts are any good based on how long they actually stay up.

LOL !

 

[bieke]

My suggestion: just disable new posters with less than X posts from posting weblinks. Because the great majority of the spam posts I see are users with 1 or 2 posts, but they always have a weblink.

 

And....THANK YOU moderators and spam-deleters.

 

Yeah, I also made that suggestion a couple of times

I don't know if it has been considered

 

the most widely used forum software can rely on 3rd party anti spam addons

it seems there is not much of these 3rd party anti spam addons for vB5, well at first vB5 was not designed for addons, when IB finally changed their policy, 3rd party developers weren't really interested in developing something for vB5, there aren't that many forums that run on vB5, about 0.7% market share

 

[Etienne Rambert]

I don`t pretend to know anything about forums design or infrastructure but just about every morning I sign in to HC, I see at least 1-2 spam threads.

 

This morning, there are PAGES of spam from the same "person".

 

I belong to other forums and I never see spam like this.

 

HC has improved a lot in the last year or so but this is an issue that is still not under control.

 

What gives?

 

I enjoy reading the SPAM threads - especially the ones about kitchens for England and Scotland. Those threads serve a public purpose IMO. If any two nations need new kitchens, it's those two places.

 

I enjoy reading some of the Spam from India too.

 

[bieke]

6 pages of spam in the community show and tell forum

the spammers have won again

 

 

 

[Dendy Jarrett]

But they were removed quickly.

[bieke]

well done

but you still don't have an effecient tool to prevent spam

so they'll be back (in fact thre are 4 new spam threads on this page)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AlamoJoe]

202ufcnet needs to get blocked asap.

[daddymack]

Done...sorry, slept in this morning...

[bieke]

so is this really the bestanti spam practice that HC has to offer ?

isn't it about time you do something proactively to prevent spammers from polluting the forums

also, how is HC going to get rid of all the sleeping spam accounts ?

what is the plan ?