Debian User Forums

For those who have been regular visitors to the forums recently, it'd have been readily apparent that we've been experiencing a bit of a spam problem (to say the least). This post is intended to describe the changes that have been made to ensure that such spam onslaughts will be better handled in the future. Your tolerance and patience over the last few weeks is greatly appreciated and we are hopefully optimistic that you won't have to suffer through such ugliness in the future.

Going forward, there will be five new admins who will have a much more hands-on presence than was the case in the past. These admins are 4D696B65, Absent Minded, craigevil, deltaflyer, and saulgoode. These five were previously either Spam Hunters or Moderators.

There have also been four new additions to the Spam Hunters group: arochester, dasein, dilberts_left_nut, and llivv. In the past, their diligent reporting of posts has been of immense help in dealing with the spam problem and their addition to the Spam Hunters is both long overdue and greatly welcomed.

We will probably be adding a few more Spam Hunters in the near future, but for the present we need to assess where we stand and get adjusted to our new duties.

Once again I'd like to express the Staff's appreciation for the patience you, the forum members, have shown over the last few weeks; and for all of the spam reports submitted and contributions made. With these changes to the forum staff I am confident that we will soon have things cleaned up and back on track.

arochester has been added to the Moderator/Administrator* group. We are hoping to eliminate some of the inactive accounts and he has agreed to help us. Thus far we have removed over ten thousand accounts but that is just a fraction of how many still need processing.


* In the preceding message I had described the new positions of 4D696B65, deltaflyer, craigevil, Absent Minded, and myself as being board administrators; this is not entirely accurate. We are members of the Moderator group but we have been granted Administrator privileges (at least, most of them).

Thanks for two things:
a) taking care of the zombie accounts
and
b) informing mere users.
Both is new and both is good.

saulgoode wrote:arochester has been added to the Moderator/Administrator* group. We are hoping to eliminate some of the inactive accounts and he has agreed to help us. Thus far we have removed over ten thousand accounts but that is just a fraction of how many still need processing.

* In the preceding message I had described the new positions of 4D696B65, deltaflyer, craigevil, Absent Minded, and myself as being board administrators; this is not entirely accurate. We are members of the Moderator group but we have been granted Administrator privileges (at least, most of them).

Bold emphasis mine.

Out of curiosity and the reason I decided to logon, but what timeframe constitutes an inactive account?

Does this thread from Jeroen still apply? http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=124489

Thanks.

--Michael C.

mamaCoche.net wrote:Does this thread from Jeroen still apply? http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=124489

Basically, yes. That post presents a reasonable approach to how inactive accounts are determined. I am reticent to explain further as such information would mainly be of use to spammers; however, if a member has valid posts in the forum then there is no risk that their account would be removed.

saulgoode wrote:...if a member has valid posts in the forum then there is no risk that their account would be removed.

I think I know what you're saying, but I also think it may be important to add a little nuance. That is to say, a single valid post by a spammer does not become carte blanche to then inundate the forum with crap.

dasein wrote: That is to say, a single valid post by a spammer does not become carte blanche to then inundate the forum with crap.

Uhum.
Like links to other sites? Say google?