About the spam bots

[Cham]

I was slowly leaving the community during the previous months because of the lack of activity from other users. I'm now so pissed-off by all the spam bots on this forum that I'll abruptly leave once and for all the community (which is already pretty weak anyway).

There are many new spam-postings EACH day ! Why any *sane* user would stay here ?

It's already a lot of job to the guys in charge of the forum (moderators, etc), just to erase the spam-posts and ban the bots. So I suggest a new way to register :

Each new user wannabe should ask a moderator the permission to register. Since there isn't much new user per day, it should be less work for the moderators to answer the requests than spoting and erase the spam postings. I believe something similar was adopted on the celestialmatters forum.

The frequent *new* threads from the bots are extremely annoying and a pain in the ass for the normal user which receives lots of useless messages in his/her mailbox (about the *new* threads).

Chris, Selden, please do something ONCE AND FOR ALL about this HUGE problem here, or this already unfrequented forum will die VERY FAST!

I know it's a strong constraint to ask the new user wannabe to ask an human (moderator) the premission to register, instead of an automatic registration process, but I think the bot "technology" is now in such a state that we don't have much choice. Or at least upgrade the billboard system to a MUCH smarter registration process, DAMMIT!

[t00fri]

So I suggest a new way to register :

Martin,

I am always amazed about your chronical lack of giving credit...

Your proposal is precisely what we practice since a little while over at CelestialMatters in order to control the enormous recent invasion from human-spammers/bots ...

Just for the books...

Fridger

[Cham]

So I suggest a new way to register :

Martin,

I am always amazed about your chronical lack of giving credit...

Your proposal is precisely what we

Fridger,

this is the kind of useless comments that makes me go away from this community.

[t00fri]

So I suggest a new way to register :

Martin,

I am always amazed about your chronical lack of giving credit...

Your proposal is precisely what we

Fridger,

this is the kind of useless comments that makes me go away from this community.

It may be useless, but it is recurrent in your case and a matter of...what do you guess?

Fridger

[Guckytos]

Hi Cham,

you are completely right with the too much spambots making entries here in the forum.

But chris has already reacted and changed the mode for registration to the account needing to be activated by an admin.

Just try to register a new one like I just did and you will see.

Best regards,

Christian

[Cham]

Hi Cham,

you are completely right with the too much spambots making entries here in the forum.

But chris has already reacted and changed the mode for registration to the account needing to be activated by an admin.

Just try to register a new one like I just did and you will see.

Best regards,

Christian

Excellent !

[Fenerit]

Hence, do you rest with us?

[Chuft-Captain]

Martin,

I am always amazed about your chronical lack of giving credit...

??
-->

I believe something similar was adopted on the celestialmatters forum.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[bh]

How can these spammers make you want to leave the community?... it makes no sense to me. It's all part of the virtual world.
Have a beer and put on some soothing music.

[t00fri]

Martin,

I am always amazed about your chronical lack of giving credit...

??
-->

I believe something similar was adopted on the celestialmatters forum.

I am sorry for overreading Cham's reference to CM.

Fridger

[selden]

Selden , on average , how many people pm you about a spam posting . i know i do for most of them

There are about a half-dozen people who report spam regularly.
I typically see 1, sometimes 2, very occasionally 3, notices about any one spammer.
(and sometimes none)
It is becoming more common to see spam from more than one source at a time.

[t00fri]

Selden , on average , how many people pm you about a spam posting . i know i do for most of them

There are about a half-dozen people who report spam regularly.
I typically see 1, sometimes 2, very occasionally 3, notices about any one spammer.
(and sometimes none)
It is becoming more common to see spam from more than one source at a time.

I gave up reporting spammers to Selden a little while ago, since much more time became necessary for taking care of the same problem at our CelestialMatters site. Now, after our "monitored login" procedure has been activated, we are looking forward to see a strong reduction of human-spammers?

Fridger

[BobHegwood]

Selden , on average , how many people pm you about a spam posting . i know i do for most of them

There are about a half-dozen people who report spam regularly.
I typically see 1, sometimes 2, very occasionally 3, notices about any one spammer.
(and sometimes none)
It is becoming more common to see spam from more than one source at a time.

Well, as Selden knows, I have always reported them with links to the offending messages.
If this is no longer desired, Selden, please just let me know. Might be of more interference
with your moderator job than the spam itself?

Thanks, Brain-Dead

[selden]

Bob,

Please continue to report any spam that you see.
I sometimes overlook it, especially when it's in the middle of a thread.

[BobHegwood]

Bob,

Please continue to report any spam that you see.
I sometimes overlook it, especially when it's in the middle of a thread.

You've got it, Selden.
I do a pretty good job of catching these things, so maybe we could just let
ME do this? Just a thought, so that Selden doesn't get overwhelmed with unnecessary messages?

Thanks, Brain-Dead

[bh]

Go for it Bob... you're the spammer spammer!

[BobHegwood]

Go for it Bob... you're the spammer spammer!

That's the Brain-Dead Spammer Spammer.
I've already done it today... Sigh...

[Chuft-Captain]

Go for it Bob... you're the spammer spammer!

That's the Brain-Dead Spammer Spammer.
I've already done it today... Sigh...

No. You're the Brain-Dead Spammer Slammer.

Slam those Spammers!!!

[ixfd64]

One thing we could do is to disallow new users who have less than a certain number of posts from posting hyperlinks. However, this will most likely impact legitimate users (my first post had a link). This may also be ineffective against the trickier bots that add legit-looking posts (e.g., "Hi, I'm new") before editing spam links into their posts at a later time.