Spam threads

[MajorFubar]

...seem to be being started by the bucketload this evening.

Does this forum not support some kind of system to stop bots registering new accounts and starting spam threads? E.g.: Capcha, or maybe have it so that mods have to manually enable all newly-registered accounts.

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Do you think it is one guy?

 

[John Duncan]

They're not bots, they're people, which are harder to deal with. Some slip through our prevention measures, but as noted previously we get 50k+ spam posts a month which you never see...

 

[MajorFubar]

Fair enough, very difficult to stop humans.

They'd have to pay me a bloody good wage to do a monotonous job of creating spam accounts and threads on websites. And anyway I don't know who they think reads them, you can spot them a mile off.

 

[MajorFubar]

They'd have to pay me a bloody good wage to do a monotonous job of creating spam... threads on websites.

Yeah, I know, it could be argued I do it round here regularly for free :roll: I'll say it myself before somebody else does...

 

[Deleted member 2457]

Do other forums get hit hard with spam?

 

[Ravey Gravey Davy]

Do other forums get hit hard with spam?

Only the Plumrose site.

 

[simonlewis]

What i can't get over is the length of the posts, surly they copy & paste if they had to type that out they would be here all night.

 

[John Duncan]

Nobody has to read them. The point is to get a link from a well-regarded/busy site to your own site, which has a great deal of value from an SEO perspective. So if google thinks that people on WHF are linking to scamshoes.com, then it thinks scamshoes.com is A Good Thing.

 

[MajorFubar]

Ah right so to get that all important referral on Google from WHF it relies on us clicking links inside their spam threads. Or do they only have to start the thread on a popular site for their rating to go up?

Sorry if that's a dumb question. You can see the limit of my knowledge regarding online marketing...

 

[John Duncan]

No you don't have to click on it, its just being there is sufficient.

 

[MajorFubar]

Ah fair enough.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

MODS .... is it uswful/necessary for us to flag these as offensive or just a pain?

 

[Andy Clough]

We have a spam filter called Mollom designed to catch this stuff. Problem is, in the last few weeks we've been swamped by more spam than ever before (typically 50,000 posts/month). We're implementing an upgrade to Mollom which will add a Capcha box to suspect posts which we hope will reduce the amount of spam getting through.

 

[landzw]

Well i can't even start a new thread, everytime i try i`m classed as spam

 

[landzw]

Well i have tried 20 different titles and i'm still spam

 

[Andrew Everard]

Well i have tried 20 different titles and i'm still spam

I've just changed your status to 'trusted authenticated user' – give it few mins and try again? Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

[relocated]

How is the work to speed up the site going? One minute it seems to be a lot better and then it goes back to dreadfully slow again. I know you have a lot of crud to get out of the system but an update would be nice.

 

[Andrew Everard]

How is the work to speed up the site going? One minute it seems to be a lot better and then it goes back to dreadfully slow again. I know you have a lot of crud to get out of the system but an update would be nice.

I am told the purge is still ongoing, and is also causing some random temporary effects such as the loss of 'read posts' data. Please bear with us – it's as frustrating for us as it is for you, and all I can do is apologise once again.

 

[landzw]

Thanks Andrew

 

[relocated]

How is the work to speed up the site going? One minute it seems to be a lot better and then it goes back to dreadfully slow again. I know you have a lot of crud to get out of the system but an update would be nice.

I am told the purge is still ongoing, and is also causing some random temporary effects such as the loss of 'read posts' data. Please bear with us – it's as frustrating for us as it is for you, and all I can do is apologise once again.

There is no need to apologise yet again. People complained, an investigation revealed the probable cause, you engaged the help of members and are doing something about it. Such problems are clearly not one button push remedied so we'll wait quietly,[which will be novel for me].

 

[Andrew Everard]

There is no need to apologise yet again.

I apologise for my excessive apologising.

 

[bigboss]

There is no need to apologise yet again.

I apologise for my excessive apologising.

 

[Big Aura]

Nobody has to read them. The point is to get a link from a well-regarded/busy site to your own site, which has a great deal of value from an SEO perspective. So if google thinks that people on WHF are linking to scamshoes.com, then it thinks scamshoes.com is A Good Thing.

I've been trying to buy some footware from the scamshoes site that JD posted above, but so far can't get through. Can you pls check the address for me? thanks.

 

[relocated]

There is no need to apologise yet again.

I apologise for my excessive apologising.

Ok that's enough now!