Please get a handle on the spammers!

[golinux]

It does not help one iota if the spammers are not erased from the database and blocked from returning.

Exactly. I thought Debian folks would be more savvy than this. Very disillusioning . . .

[nadir]

You are one step away from insight about "the staff" and how much they do care...
you all can propose as much as you like (it won't happen).

[golinux]

Are we approaching heresy?

[eric1959]

You can recognize these new members as spammers according to their usernames :
chepfapnorth5ae see the links.
car9ztinsuranc2 no links yet, but you can guess...
bla7mckberryhqk no posts yet...

The list goes on....

[pcalvert]

Some spammers sign up for the forum but never post any messages. They think that the links that they put in their profiles help them, but it doesn't help them at all. On some forums it may, but not on this one. Only members who are signed in can view the profiles; for everyone else, it's as if they don't even exist.

Phil

[eric1959]

Looking at http://forums.debian.net/memberlist.php?start=38650 and going to previous pages you see all these new spammers with 0 posts and their ad links.

[Bulkley]

You can recognize these new members as spammers according to their usernames :
chepfapnorth5ae see the links.
car9ztinsuranc2 no links yet, but you can guess...
bla7mckberryhqk no posts yet...

The list goes on....

Not always. I was shocked at some of the innocent looking names spammers use. I also found several who register and make a couple of posts, introduce themselves and comment on a thread or two. Then they go dormant for a period. When we all assume that they have drifted away, we find that they have edited old posts and their personal information with spam links.

Catching them requires checking username, email address and IP. Email address is the most reliable. It is easy and convenient to change username and IP but most spammers want you to be able to email them.

BTW, of the usernames listed above, the first one is not caught by tools such as Stop Forum Spam (at least not yet) but the other two are.

[vrkalak]

This is what we have to contend with, from the new generation of SPAM Farms:

XR****** 7.0 ELITE is the BEST SEO software ever:

+ it's mass post to forums, blogs, guestbooks, boards, social networks
+ automatically bypass captchas, ReCaptcha (yes! XR***** 7 do it), e-mail confirmation
+ XR***** 7.0 knows more that 100 different types of captchas and effectively bypass that all (99% of all)
+ make a lot of routines such as auto-registration e-mails on gmail.com, mail.ru, etc., etc.

[Mr James]

You would think one of the staff is actually reading this thread and doing something about it like deleting the spam accounts eric spoon fed them. You would think...but you would be mistaken.

[traveler]

Stop reporting spam posts and perhaps the "staff" will become motivated to find a more effective solution.

[Cope57]

Looking at http://forums.debian.net/memberlist.php?start=38650 and going to previous pages you see all these new spammers with 0 posts and their ad links.

Also note there are over 16,650 accounts with zero posts.

Such wasted space, now how many real members are there?

[eric1959]

.... now how many real members are there?

[Revenger]

Mods do great job about spam

[mzilikazi]

Yes the spam is out of control just as it's always been. This is nothing new - you've just been spared seeing most of it by some extremely busy individuals. As of today, the only method for dealing with spammers has been moving threads and deleting accounts. This does work but it's completely unrealistic to expect humans to handle the mundane task of moving dozens (hundreds?) of threads day in and day out. Nor is it realistic to expect someone to spend hours a day deleting accounts. This is a never ending task.

What can we do about it?

There are ways and means of dealing with spammers at a lower level - before they ever get here. This would be implemented at the server level.

Why isn't anyone implementing those ways and means?

Sadly, there is no one with the time or ambition to take on the responsibility of making those changes at the server. The 'position' is open but the only individuals that would be considered must have Debian membership.

And so it is...

[Cope57]

Is the forum up to date?
I do not know the version of the software that this forum is running, but it could be slightly out of date for some bug fixes for fighting spam?

[phpBB update packages]

Just a suggestion to get it updated, or at least check to see if it is current.

[eric1959]

Is the forum up to date?
I do not know the version of the software that this forum is running, but it could be slightly out of date for some bug fixes for fighting spam?

[phpBB update packages]

Just a suggestion to get it updated, or at least check to see if it is current.

Sadly, there is no one with the time or ambition to take on the responsibility of making those changes at the server. The 'position' is open but the only individuals that would be considered must have Debian membership.

And so it is...

[jheaton5]

Yes the spam is out of control just as it's always been. This is nothing new - you've just been spared seeing most of it by some extremely busy individuals. As of today, the only method for dealing with spammers has been moving threads and deleting accounts. This does work but it's completely unrealistic to expect humans to handle the mundane task of moving dozens (hundreds?) of threads day in and day out. Nor is it realistic to expect someone to spend hours a day deleting accounts. This is a never ending task.

What can we do about it?

There are ways and means of dealing with spammers at a lower level - before they ever get here. This would be implemented at the server level.

Why isn't anyone implementing those ways and means?

Sadly, there is no one with the time or ambition to take on the responsibility of making those changes at the server. The 'position' is open but the only individuals that would be considered must have Debian membership.

And so it is...

This sounds the death knell of forums.debian.net. Sad.

[BioTube]

For what it's worth, we stopped getting spam after installing the Sortables CAPTCHA(though it defaulting to a different language than the board makes questions a bit more annoying to add than they should be). I'm not claiming it's the final solution to the spambot question, but using the default CAPTCHA increases your vulnerability by quite a bit.

[vbrummond]

Been a bit better lately. Still get spammers but I see them wiped off the map right before my eyes *just right now even*. Great job.

[Tadeas]

Captcha has difficult times nowadays, see http://decaptcher.com . They solve it by humans, they have like hundreds of Indians sitting by screens and cracking Captcha. So I'm afraid there's no real help, spam is simply going to increase in forthcoming months and years and nobody can do anything about it.