Please get a handle on the spammers!

[golinux]

It's been really bad lately. Not a pleasant task to deal with it but somebody's gotta do it.

[vbrummond]

Hmm yeah. These forums get spammed a lot sadly.

[secipolla]

They are deleted quite swiftly but I think it would be useful to have better control on registering (not that I have any suggestion since I never ran a forum).

[nomko]

On some other forum's they use blocking by IP. That could work for spammers. Someone's IP address must be visible for board administrator's. So, if some spammer registers here and start spamming, block his/her IP. And if the board administrator notice that the spamming comes from a certain range of IP addresses, block that specific range (if this is possible).

[qjqqyy]

my ISP share IP addresses, and from wikipedia vandalism records, i can tell that i am sharing IP with a bunch of a**holes.
So this will most likely ban me from the forum, and as far as most ppl are concerned I am a legitimate and good member.

[nomko]

my ISP share IP addresses, and from wikipedia vandalism records, i can tell that i am sharing IP with a bunch of a**holes.
So this will most likely ban me from the forum, and as fat as most ppl are concerned I am a legitimate and good member.

Then that would be a shame loosing you here if that's true with that sharing IP policy and sharing it with some f*****g clowns....

[xircon]

My Missus manages Sheffield Forum, they have 100,000+ members. She is constantly fighting not only spam, but unbelievable racist nonsense (and calls to start rioting). Her board runs vBulitin and she has a large number of volunteer mods and is really struggling at the moment. A bit of commercial spam is nothing!

[quartermass]

This robinson and robert1234 spammed just about every post.

[eric1959]

This morning I had to push the Report this post button about 30 times....

[AMLJ]

The coach outlet guy spams my blog comments too... Yet I don't care.. I mean, at least he says something related to the post, like "This was very useful, thanks", and that's enough for me not to remove his comments... But I think if he wants to advertise, he should put it in his signature... It's not so cool to do something like this, posting ads on every damn thread...

[ComputerBob]

The coach outlet guy spams my blog comments too... Yet I don't care.. I mean, at least he says something related to the post, like "This was very useful, thanks", and that's enough for me not to remove his comments...

In the past 4 years, I've deleted tens out thousands of "This was very useful, thanks" messages that spammers have posted in my blog. That type of message is often posted by automated software, not by live human beings -- which explains why the exact same generic "comment" often appears almost simulateously in several different, completely unrelated blog postings. "This was very useful, thanks" is one of the many generic, complimentary comments that spammers use when they want to fool you into thinking that a human being actually READ and appreciated your postings, so that you won't delete what they've posted. IMHO, such garbage postings have no value and serve no purpose other than to advertise and display a link to the spammer's site, so I always delete them as soon as I see them.

[vbrummond]

Yeah f em. Nuke em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[eric1959]

Yeah f em. Nuke em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Hasta la vista, baby....

[Llewton]

on the bright side, spam messages have gotten, basically, cleverer and cleverer
the same can't be said for another problem of this forum and those would be insane ubuntu trolls.

[secipolla]

Hi mods. Today I've seen spams from users that have spammed before; aren't they banned?
I know they can register again (unfortunately) but ban the person/bot right away.

edit- Actually something that at least sounds smart would be a feature that would leave them registered but the spammer posts would simply not appear (of course from time to time there would need a 'one-click clean-up' otherwise the forum would reach a million users..).

[Donate321]

Don´t panic too much - it´s not so much a pain as many people make of it. Don´t get me wrong I´m not pro spam - it´s just that I cannot read and hear it anymore how painfull it is to to get an nwanted phone call, an newsletter I never ordered ... it´s just getting used to the fcats of live, go over the "thak´s it was helpful" and turn a phone down from time to time ... relax.
Doris

[secipolla]

I don't think so, Doris. It's not a matter of being a 'pain'. It's just that if those post aren't deleted and unwise folks click on their links and answer their posts I think this could trigger the spambots to target the site more and more.

[Bulkley]

I help moderate another forum that uses phpbb. We recently installed a little script available here that checks each new registrant against a list of known spammers. If he/she is found on the list they get this message:

No soup for you!

It looks like you've been flagged as a spammer. You may not pass.

It works. There is no anti-spam protection that is 100% effective but this one is better than most.

[AMLJ]

The coach outlet guy spams my blog comments too... Yet I don't care.. I mean, at least he says something related to the post, like "This was very useful, thanks", and that's enough for me not to remove his comments...

In the past 4 years, I've deleted tens out thousands of "This was very useful, thanks" messages that spammers have posted in my blog. That type of message is often posted by automated software, not by live human beings -- which explains why the exact same generic "comment" often appears almost simulateously in several different, completely unrelated blog postings. "This was very useful, thanks" is one of the many generic, complimentary comments that spammers use when they want to fool you into thinking that a human being actually READ and appreciated your postings, so that you won't delete what they've posted. IMHO, such garbage postings have no value and serve no purpose other than to advertise and display a link to the spammer's site, so I always delete them as soon as I see them.

Oh... I was totally fooled by this one I gotta say...

[Mr James]

Very good thread with all important information -thanks.