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Spam


Paul

Paul

Former Member
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Why or how is it no body sees spam here?
I see it just by the name and the info they place in there profile, yet the site as to act after the fact, it is beyond me why this is so.
I ain't no mod here but this does get by so easily, i mean come on if they bother to put user info in and it says things like 'from eexchhass33 j i' ain't it obvious there a spammer out to do no good?
Ban it before it spreads it's crap all over the boards:banghead:

My two cents don't carry much lately, i know that and that's fine - but i still have a fondness for the place shame it's left to happen really.
 
i've always wondered if regularly (or randomly) changing the forum application forms every so often would work, spam bots are just scripted programs that are designed to do a certain amount of actions per application, if you add or remove a field in the form, the bot will have a problem with applying and wont be able to do anything about it until the operator changes it's script.

there's also the option of locking the other forums down for new users until they say hello and respond adequately in that forum. that way keeping the spam bots all in one place for one admin to keep an eye on it all. just my silly ideas :P
 
Since yesterday 32 accounts were banned because of spam, 718 accounts were banned this month so far, and 1,750 for the year so far.
Funny names and silly comments under most circumstances don't get some one banned, they have to actually do something before we ban them.

If you see something you consider spam use the report button, and we'll look at it.
If we agree we'll ban the account if not we won't.
 
Spam posts are deleted almost immediately . With the exception of bots and easily detected spammer users, we give anyone who register the benefit of the doubt as to what their intentions of joining the forum are.

Like steve said, new users have to do something foolishly against forum regulations before we can ban them. As for new users with "exotic" names, the bots we can easily spot which explains the ban stats for the first couple of months of the year.

But there are those who register just for the info the forum carries as well as certain user benefits like downloading stuff available around. ... ie. psd files or viewing certain stuff available to registered users only. These users may not be interested in being active in the forum. The same way that myself am a member at other forums but not taking part in the activity.

As a community, this should be a place where people can gather and discuss not only Photoshop but other things as well. Adds more color to the place.... down to earth like a mom and pop soda shop where everyone, regardless of interest and creed come to chill out.

Don't worry , folks. We got the spammers in our crosshairs.
 
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I run a forum, too, and it is impossible to win the war with spammers without locking down the forum completely. I have SIX people on staff and the scum still gets through. We all have lives and don't want to spend all our time online with a high-powered spam eradicating rifle shooting down the spambots. I personally think the staff here at PSG does a great job picking them off as they pass by. Target practice, as it were.

My real question is....does it ever work? Does anyone savvy enough to post on a forum actually buy anything from a spam post or be stupid enough to risk a virus by clicking on one of their crap links? Their porn does not interest me, I have no intention of buying aspirin dressed up as Xanax, I have no need to increase the size of my... erm... "package" (especially since I'm a girl), and something makes me doubt that anyone spamming a forum has "genuine rolex watches".

Seems like a huge waste of time to me.
 
I dont think it is designed to work each link they post is like an advert so somewhere someone is getting paid for posting the links. hence the fact we normally get 3 or identical threads. If you look at them they are all pretty much the same.

They are bots that tally up the links as they post them and on top of that some of the links go via an add proxy we had 1 the other day posting links to other threads in our forum but to get to it you had to go via an advert these posts are people that get paid by views of adverts.

does not matter what spam defenses you have there will always be ones that slide though the net to have a 100% spam free forum especially 1 with over 30,000 members almost 200-300 new members signing up each day and lately we have constantly got 200+ people online at any one time browsing the forum with only a handful of members in comparison.

We can have 3 of us deleting spam accounts 24\7 but our over all members list will not go down as they are joining quicker than we can delete them.

I know it gets frustrating when you see the same how to rip movies to ipod etc spam threads all the time but unfortunately it needs a mod to be on here 24\7 to delete them rarely do they stay active longer than 10 - 15 mins most of them will be dealt with in 5 mins.

But a site this size will always attract spam.

I can guarentee you guys are watching people\bots post getting annoyed but most the time we are watching them too.
 
a spam free forum is possibly.
iv been a member at c4dcafe for a few years and i cant even tell you the last time a seen a spam post.
and the mods there have life's to :cheesygrin:
you should talk to the owner there and ask him how he keeps the spammers out
 
c4dcafe is not vbulletin and is not 1\5th of the size we are and half the members. we need vbulletin to operate this forum and unfortunately it is probably the biggest spam attractor.

with only 5 reports of spam not spotted by mods from our members in 7 days i wouldnt think that spam was all that much of a big deal here. 1750 accounts banned and deleted as steve pointed out in just over a month. I am sure c4dcafe still gets spam posts just like any other forum. I think the issue here is you guys are predicting spam before they actually post any spam we see it as well but we can not act upon it until they do.

The key is if you guys hit the report button if I am at home I will have it deleted within 5 mins
 
Most probably you never got a chance to see the posts. As long as someone is online, when a spammer makes his post, the Mod would be right there ready to delete.

I've seen this happen in other forums... Renderosity, DAZ, Talk Graphics... one moment spam is there, the next , gone.
 
A site i used to use more than here as over 100 thousand members i never really witnessed any spam there, ok maybe late at night the odd one would pop up - but it was gone no sooner you witnessed it.
It as a rolling moderation panel with on average 3 mods roaming and doing what mods do at any one time, some times no mods are visible but that doesn't mean they are not there does it.
I out grew the site as my interest in it's subject matter dwindled, but i do pop in from time to time and it still looks and runs spam free to this day.
I understand that spam is always going to be here, like most sites it's an on going problem.
I still get the odd pm with crap in it, and i still see DVD ripper adverts here every other week, and they are up for hours sometimes hows that work?
 
This will go in circles
I have logged on seen spam threads with 80 + views not 1 report

we have had 12 reports in a month 3 of them were not spam so 9

all actioned within mins except 1 that was closer to an hour this can not be helped at some times

Our procedure is not to guess who will spam even if it is obvious bots it can be frustrating but until they spam we do not action it unless they meet other criteria.

Yes we are a huge forum most of our spam comes from the web development forums that attracts a lot along with the off topic section because the bots pick up key words in them if maybe we deleted half the forums on this site we would probably make 90% of spam extinct here.

Bottom line is if it bothers you then act on it as well and not just wait for us to come online. We have the report function there

Maybe we need to have some reward system for using this function as it seems to be the only way to get it used some of you will use it occassionally fair enough But if you all like the site and enjoy being a member of the community you surely would like to help keep it clean.
 
So now it's members faults (80 plus) for not informing you of potential spam actions here?
 
dv8_fx said:
Most probably you never got a chance to see the posts. As long as someone is online, when a spammer makes his post, the Mod would be right there ready to delete.

I've seen this happen in other forums... Renderosity, DAZ, Talk Graphics... one moment spam is there, the next , gone.
Click to expand...
not likely.
when i didnt have a job i was there 24/7 helping people.
Hoogle dont trust the member total to show how big a forum is.
only reason cafe hasnt got as many members is because after about 12 months members accounts get removed if they havent visited in that period.
what you have to count is the active members.
but im not saying anything bad about spam getting through on this site im just saying that its possible to have a spam free forum which is what i commented on.

just a bit extra
c4dcafe = 238,646 Total Posts
PSG = Posts 111,664

just thought i would add some facts to what i was saying
 
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what do you want me to say if spam is such a big deal and even you must realistically understand this site is not monitored 24\7 then is it so hard to report it so yeah if it bothers you so much but not enough to report it how do you expect us to deal with it

same as your pm spam you get if you dont report it how do we know about it.

generally if a mod is online spam gets deleted

if I am offline and you report it even if I am asleep it will alert me and I can deal with it there maybe a few hours here and there where I can not do anything about it as I am doing something else I know shock horror a life away from this site.

I am not responding to this anymore because I dont know what you want me to say. The fact is spam is going to slip by you can watch it and complain or report it it may get sorted instantly or it may not but I guarentee sooner or later it will be dealt with as long as we are made aware of it.
 
i dont have any promlem with there being spam here.
not hard to just ignore and report only takes me a second of my time.
my comment was more about someone posting that a forum cant be spam free.
 
Lots of filters out there maybe it is time
 
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