Spammers on the Site

Hi Guys



so our forums seem to have been targeted by a link farming agency.



we have tried a few various tricks to try and stop bots from signing up but it appears the sign up process is actually being done by humans (Mechanical Turk is my guess)



you can spot them about - leaving stupid messages that make no sense followed by a bunch of crap about a website that you should visit.



we are going to continue to try and combat them - which may involve a few additions to the site. Please bear with us while we try to figure this out i will post any updates on the situation here



if you have any updates at your end as to what exactly they are doing that we don’t know about please let me know.


[quote]bryan spence (24/10/2011)[hr]Hi Guys



so our forums seem to have been targeted by a link farming agency.



we have tried a few various tricks to try and stop bots from signing up but it appears the sign up process is actually being done by humans (Mechanical Turk is my guess)



you can spot them about - leaving stupid messages that make no sense followed by a bunch of crap about a website that you should visit.



we are going to continue to try and combat them - which may involve a few additions to the site. Please bear with us while we try to figure this out i will post any updates on the situation here



if you have any updates at your end as to what exactly they are doing that we don’t know about please let me know.



[/quote]



Just to clarify, I am human and not a spam bot. I am not Turkish also (despite looking slightly like one in my profile pic). I do leave stupid messages that often make no sense but there is no ulterior motive, i’m just here for the fun banter with my muckers :wink:

more:[url]http://forums.sonicacademy.com/FindPost78614.aspx[/url]

More: http://forums.sonicacademy.com/Topic78637-13-1.aspx#bm78805

Bryan could you also start banning useless humans on here that do nothing but post up crap and take up space? Before you get the flame cannon out, think about it. Potential subscriber comes on this site, asks a question or whatever and then gets his thread hijacked by a couple of people who start ranting on about crap that no one understands and the cherry on the cake is they arent even subscribed themselves because they think your not putting out any decent content. So i ask why be here? They could potentially be harming your business…

[quote]jjdejong0 (29/10/2011)[hr]Bryan could you also start banning useless humans on here that do nothing but post up crap and take up space? Before you get the flame cannon out, think about it. Potential subscriber comes on this site, asks a question or whatever and then gets his thread hijacked by a couple of people who start ranting on aboutcrap that no one understandsand the cherry on the cake is they arent even subscribed themselves because they think your not putting out any decent content. So i ask why be here? They could potentially be harming your business…[/quote]

Hi



If a post is inappropriate use the report post tool. I check out all of those. I can then have a look And see the culprits

Well its not like the posts r innapropriate in the way of being offensive etc its more like people feel the need that every thread in every section of the forum is an excuse to try and make jokes and be funny and completely hijack threads, i just think some stricter modding needs to be done. I mean theres a whole section for mindless banter in the off topic section, but some people find this concept hard to grasp…

[quote]jjdejong0 (29/10/2011)[hr]Well its not like the posts r innapropriate in the way of being offensive etc its more like people feel the need that every thread in every section of the forum is an excuse to try and make jokes and be funny and completely hijack threads, i just think some stricter modding needs to be done. I mean theres a whole section for mindless banter in the off topic section, but some people find this concept hard to grasp…[/quote]



Its inappropriate if it’s of no help . So I can delete and warn the offender

I have to agree with Jan on this one. 90% of the threads here end up being just gibberish.

Well - at the end of the day - I believe its a website & not a concentration camp.

Hopefully we can all live in harmony here & not try to virtually destroy one another by reporting for the sake of it.

Peace Macht Frei.

I also hope everyone can live in peace, im also not going to use the report function as it feels like snitching. Im just going to ask that people try and be on topic first, have a laugh or chat **** later or just keep it in their own threads or the off topic section.

[quote]jjdejong0 (29/10/2011)[hr]Bryan could you also start banning useless humans on here that do nothing but post up crap and take up space? Before you get the flame cannon out, think about it. Potential subscriber comes on this site, asks a question or whatever and then gets his thread hijacked by a couple of people who start ranting on aboutcrap that no one understandsand the cherry on the cake is they arent even subscribed themselves because they think your not putting out any decent content. So i ask why be here? They could potentially be harming your business…[/quote]



Expect a reply to this - just too drunk now

Loads o’Spammers on the site today :slight_smile:

Bond James, Tom Cruise… to name but a few.

Are they all coming from different IP addresses?

[quote]ICN (31/10/2011)[hr]Loads o’Spammers on the site today :slight_smile:



Bond James, Tom Cruise… to name but a few.



Are they all coming from different IP addresses?[/quote]



they are



they are all getting banned within a few hours and posts removed so just wasting their time really. - if it persists past this week i will put a first post approval limit on and then that should shut them up

Can you not just ban the IP?

[quote]ICN (31/10/2011)[hr]Can you not just ban the IP?[/quote]



they are all coming from different individual IP’s

Then it has to be the post settings… Nuke 'em.

Here:

http://forums.sonicacademy.com/FindPost78972.aspx

Could you not do some sort of human verification thingy on registering or posting topics etc?

[quote]jjdejong0 (31/10/2011)[hr]Could you not do some sort of human verification thingy on registering or posting topics etc?[/quote]



it’s humans doing it unfortunately