[Update] Deal with Spammers

[rdearman]

Again, I'm asking if there is a way for the members to block these spammers, besides just reporting their post?

No that isn't possible. The software doesn't support it, and if it were allowed it would be open to abuse by trolls or people worse than spammers. It would give anyone the power to delete any post they didn't like. We try to respond as quickly as possible, and the moderation/admin team is spread fairly widely across the world, so we do get pretty good coverage most of the day where an admin or a moderator will be online and dealing with these types of spam bots.

The signup questions do a pretty good job of filtering most spam bots, but if a human creates the account and then turns on the spam bot with the credentials they created, that is almost impossible to prevent.

[tomgosse]

And to keep Tomgosse happy and relaxed: below you see a kitten named "Humle" ('Hop') having fun with one of my mother's indoor plants:

I love cats ! J'adore les chats !

hipster cat.jpg

[Stefan]

I guess there are a few things you can do to reduce the spam:

1) Use Akismet/http:BL/blacklist to stop known spammers form signing up (might be false flags).

2) Reduce number of posts a new user can make first 24 hours (annoying).

3) Stop people from posting links/images in their 5 first posts (annoying).

4) Force new members to confirm their mail (not sure if this is activated).

5) Change so admin/mods needs to approve every new user (annoying).

6) Bann IP from known spammers.

7) Put account in temporary lockdown when they post an URL to a known spam site.

8) Change so mods/admin must approve first 3 posts before they become visible.

9) Compare post with the previous one and put account in lockdown if identical.

I believe that covers most available solutions but several of them are terrible for both the user and mods. For regular users, number 8 combined with 2 (manual approve of 3 posts + limit to 3 posts on first day) would be best because mods can filter out spam accounts without regular users ever seeing it. The drawback is that you'll get a lot of extra work in comparison to just deleting after report.

Personally I haven't seen much/any spam in the threads I follow so you're doing a great job.

[Expugnator]

I think 2) alone would reduce much of the damage caused by that Lisie.

[astromule]

I'm also happy and relaxed now.

And to keep Tomgosse happy and relaxed: below you see a kitten named "Humle" ('Hop') having fun with one of my mother's indoor plants:

Humle_M0509b02.JPG

But what do you do if the spammer is a cat?

In most cases we agree that there is something wrong, and then one of us will remove the offending message and maybe even block the author, but there are also cases where we just choose to send a warning, and then it may seem that we haven't reacted at all. With multiple posts the logical alternative is of course to remove one of the copies, but that can be difficult if others already have published comments.

That is good to know. So, we should not comment on posts that may be spam? By the way, I think the moderators are doing an admirable job of running the forum.

If the spam annoys me, I go to facebook and look at pictures of kittens for a while.

[Star1]

I guess there are a few things you can do to reduce the spam:

1) Use Akismet/http:BL/blacklist to stop known spammers form signing up (might be false flags).

2) Reduce number of posts a new user can make first 24 hours (annoying).

3) Stop people from posting links/images in their 5 first posts (annoying).

I think 3 is the best idea. Most forums do this.

[rdearman]

Wanted to give people a quick update on this, the adminstration & moderators have agreed to put in a "flood limit" for messages. This requires the user to wait a few seconds between posts. Most users will not notice this, however bots will not be able to flood the forum with messages. We are still reviewing some possible extentions which will restrict the rights of new users to post links.

The problem for the moderation team is balancing the freedom of forum members to post and discuss effectively and efficently with the restriction of bots and spammers. We don't want to restrict new users to much, because we want to encourage them to come back frequently and be full members.

[emk]

So, we should not comment on posts that may be spam?

Spam seems to come in two flavors:

1. Mass drive-by spam which appears on many threads. If you see this, then just report it once, and don't respond. We'll clean it up using the "ban hammer" and delete every post the spammer ever made.
2. Posts in the "Resources" room which (a) advertise useless and ridiculous language-learning products and which (b) appear to have ignored our self-promotion policy, which essentially says, "Brand-new users who promote their products without asking for permission have voluntarily subjected themselves to the whims of the moderators, and we will keep or delete their posts as we see fit."

In case (2), if you write an interesting negative review before a moderator deletes the post, it's not the end of the world—in that case, we may just lock the spammer's account, remove any links to their product, and let your negative review stand. This means that when somebody does a Google search on the spammer's product, they'll find our forum with negative reviews, but no link to buy the product. I guess you could call it an own goal for the spammer, and interesting content for us.

But don't feel obligated—it's totally OK to just report people who only signed up to tell us about ridiculous and worthless courses or apps.

[Bluepaint]

So, we should not comment on posts that may be spam?

Spam seems to come in two flavors:

[list=1]
[*]Mass drive-by spam which appears on many threads. If you see this, then just report it once, and don't respond. We'll clean it up using the "ban hammer" and delete every post the spammer ever made.

Yes please only report it once. I logged on after a few hours to see 35 notificationa regarding the spam attack the other day and let me say it is a huge pain in the neck trying to clear all those whilst using the site on my mobile. I could mark them all as read but then I might have missed something that was a different spammer or a report for an inflammtory message or something. So please just the once!

[Carmody]

My thanks and gratitude to the hard working powers that were able to stop a recent spam in 2 of my groups.

The person was selling teaching of foreign language for .50 / an hour. The ads were taken down by our wonderful and most knowledgeable leaders.

For which many thanks.