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A Note on Spam


david.atwell

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Hey everybody!


So, you may have noticed that there's been a lot of spam around here recently.  Sorry about that.  Looks like some Korean spammer has identified us as a good dumping ground for their Google-gaming.  (If you're one of those spammers, Hi!  Get out.)
 
The mod staff has tried several things to stem the tide, which I won't go into here, but we do want to be sensitive to legitimate users joining for legitimate reasons.  In the meantime, we're just playing whack-a-mole with the spammers.  Please bear with us; we have moderators covering most of the globe, so if there's spam there's probably a moderator available soon to take it down.  We're doing our best, but we're humans and they're robots, so it's going to be a difficult battle.
 
If there are any updates that we feel the community should know, we'll make them in this thread.  (And seriously, spammers?  Out.  Now.)

Lots of spam? Can't find your post?


If your question is buried under tons of spam, we're sorry. Rest assured, there will be a mod around soon to get rid of it. In the meantime, you can find your post by clicking your username in the top-right corner of the site, then hitting "Your Content." All of your posts should be there. Thanks for bearing with us!

- - -

 
 

Incidentally, as of December 8, our mod staff had zapped over 10,000 posts from hundreds of spam accounts.


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Edited by david.atwell
+"Lots of spam? Can't find your post?" section
  • Upvote 8

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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Is it worth us reporting when a new attack starts (though they seem almost constant)?

No. That just causes more work for us as we then have to deal with the report.

Believe me, we see it.

The only time you should report a spam post is if they put the spam at the end of another thread.

  • Upvote 2
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BoltBait and I spent a great deal of time online yesterday dealing with the spam. I'd like to thank him and the other Admins & Mods for standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches.

 

Rest assured the battle is being fought on a number of fronts. The autofilter is being used to remove most of the offending material that does make it through. Yesterday alone I posted three new sets of registration questions to try and stem the tide. We have other systems and processes employed, and are investigating more.

 

We seem to have won a small respite. Bear with us. :D

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Yep, when you had posted new questions EER - that's when we would get a lull. Seems good this morning. Well done all. Really good question too Red. :D 

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Knowledge is no burden to carry.

 

April Jones, 2012

 
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Thank you mods! These massive waves have been so weird and odd. I"m really glad to hear and see this small mention to what's been going on. Thank you so much for your efforts.


I honestly feel bad for newbies right now, because some of them make new topics, but then they lose their topics in a sea of spam, unable to know where their posts went and what just happened (most newbies don't instantly realize that they can find their posts from their profile.) I hope we all manage to survive in the end. :lightning:

Edited by Cc4FuzzyHuggles
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The chance of any collateral damage to legitimate posts is very, very small.

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Many thanks to Admins and Moderators! (In the old days, ya'll were called Sysops (system operator), with a Wizop (wizard operator) at the head.)

 

Trying to keep up with the robots is the pits.

 

BTW, the place where one can find one's posts might be mentioned in The Rules, also -- because this software is different from a number of forae I know, and I didn't know where to find them until someone mentioned it.

 

Good luck in stemming the tide!

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I honestly feel bad for newbies right now, because some of them make new topics, but then they lose their topics in a sea of spam, unable to know where their posts went and what just happened (most newbies don't instantly realize that they can find their posts from their profile.) I hope we all manage to survive in the end. :lightning:

BTW, the place where one can find one's posts might be mentioned in The Rules, also -- because this software is different from a number of forae I know, and I didn't know where to find them until someone mentioned it.

Good call. Added a note to that effect up top.

 

Many thanks to Admins and Moderators! (In the old days, ya'll were called Sysops (system operator), with a Wizop (wizard operator) at the head.)

BoltBait, EER, and Pyro are sysops. I'm more like the guy with the mop bucket.   ;)  Just consider this thread a Wet Floor sign.

  • Upvote 1

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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Thank you for your valuable time and hard work, admins and mods.

I've been in your shoes. I know how boring and time consuming it can be fighting bots.

Xkds4Lh.png

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Thank you to all Moderators who keep the forum clean for us.   :beer:  :pizza:  :mtdew:  :cake:

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Gandhi

 

mae3426x.png

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Good call. Added a note to that effect up top.

 

BoltBait, EER, and Pyro are sysops. I'm more like the guy with the mop bucket.   ;)  Just consider this thread a Wet Floor sign.

 

 

Mop buckets are rather essential in this kind of situation. Thanks for your work, all of you. (And thanks for the sign... slippery floors are no fun.)

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We're trying out a new kind of CAPTCHA to hopefully reduce the amount of spam.

  • Upvote 1

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[i write plugins and stuff]

If you like a post, upvote it!

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  • 4 months later...

To mark the occasion, I would like first to express my thanks to those who remove the reported spam quickly.
However, I have the impression that the spam filter and badword filter of the forum does not work very effectively.
I am happy to help, if that is possible.
I store examples of current SPAM-wave and would provide Word lists.

 

Another suggestion:
a SPAM contribution often is extremely long - much longer than regular postings of legitimate users. Maybe it would help to limit the length of postings on a particular set of words or character set.

Edited by IRON67
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IRON67: I'm not sure if we have that sort of control over the forum or not, but that's a great idea.  Definitely worth looking into.  And thanks for keeping track of some stats about the spam.

 

 

---

 

 

Since you brought it up, this is a good time for an update:

Yes, spam has been increasing recently.  Sorry about that.  We're trying to keep a handle on it, and we're recording more information with each ban that we can hopefully use to lock spam out completely.

 

Thanks again for all of your patience and support here.  Keep bearing with us.  And, it goes without saying: don't call the phone numbers or click the links that they post.

  • Upvote 2

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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The Paint.NET forum is hosted and supported by IPB.  Rick or someone else would have to answer whether or not our contract includes that sort of support.

 

The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.
Amy: But how did it end up in there?
The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.
River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him.

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  • 3 weeks later...

IRON67: I'm not sure if we have that sort of control over the forum or not, but that's a great idea.  Definitely worth looking into.  And thanks for keeping track of some stats about the spam.

 

 

---

 

 

Since you brought it up, this is a good time for an update:

Yes, spam has been increasing recently.  Sorry about that.  We're trying to keep a handle on it, and we're recording more information with each ban that we can hopefully use to lock spam out completely.

 

Thanks again for all of your patience and support here.  Keep bearing with us.  And, it goes without saying: don't call the phone numbers or click the links that they post.

 

 

BTW, are you on Twitter to be followed.

If so, what is the ID please.

Its easy to get brief expert advise from you, once on Twitter.

Will be active here too. 

Thanks

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  • 6 months later...

At present the massive spam disturbs again very much. Today he is still there 8 hours after posting. I know today is Sunday. Nevertheless, it would be nice if someone would take care of it. Unfortunately you can not report the spammers by clicking on a link anymore.

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