How you can help deal with Spam on the forum.

[Solo]

I've noticed that some clever new spam accounts are managing to slip through and make posts... Several have been pretty obvious: they sign up and immediately post a huge thread with cell phone advertising links, and are easily noticed and banned/removed. Others: not so obvious...

So, what can you do to help? Well, first off: DO NOT CLICK THEIR LINKS. I shouldn't even have to say that, but I did anyways. Also, Don't reply to their threads or posts. Instead: look right next to the "quote" button - there's a special button that looks like this (top is regular, bottom is when you have your mouse on it.) Simply click it to report the spam post. That flags the thread for us staff members, so the next time we log in we can clean it up quickly. SIMPLE!

Think you guys can do that for us while we try and figure out how to stop them before they can post?

[Kevin Koala]

Ok, but how will we know if it is or not?

[Solo]

If you think it is, report it. The staff will take a look and deal with it accordingly. Easy.

[Solo]

BMUP!
Just a heads up: PMing me is less effective than reporting the threads - but you're all doing a great job of not responding to them. Except RocketClone. But you deleted your topic it so it's cool.

[thepatient]

I do have at least one question about this, Don. Are there any indications that show the thread has already been reported?

I reported one the other day, but it was within minutes of being posted. I saw one yesterday, but it was quite sometime after it was originally posted. I have no problem reporting it, but I don't want to one in 100 people sending the same thing to the staff. Do you guys want a flood of reports to make a spam thread stick out more?

[Andi]

If it is already reported, you get a message that it is already reported when you click the ! symbol.

[thepatient]

Thanks Andi, I never got that message when I've reported threads. I must have been the first one those couple of times.

It's weird, as I was looking three more popped up, so I did the "!" icon and got the "already reported message".

[Solo]

When you report a thread, it does't get sent to anyone that I know of - if just flags it with the /!\ icon and highlights it red. So when I click my handy "What's new?" link I can easily see what needs to be dealt with. I didn't know it *couldn't* be reported more than once, since I've had posts with multiple reports... but don't hesitate to report anything you see out of place guys.

[thepatient]

It's interesting how I've learned just seeing the newest member and the username doesn't look right. I've noticed that within minutes they begin spamming. Is that a spambot or do they use actual people now? Just to get past the spamming features.

[meeotch]

A lot of spam "companies" have actually turned to hiring cheap labor in third world countries to break captchas. Typically, that's the one place in the sign-up process that automation has a hard time with. After that's done, the account could either be turned over to a spambot or the person could spam themselves.

[Solo]

Lies. It's Skynet.

[Bulls_Eye]

I have noticed that it seems to be happening more often. That or maybe I'm just seeing it more.

[Solo]

No, it is getting more common. Hence the need for CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

[The Brain]

Is it just a nuisance at this point, or is it starting to get out of hand?

[Solo]

It's always been a nuisance. It's just slightly more frequent lately.

[theJudeAbides]

The thing I've never understood about spam (or pretty much any online advertising) is how it manages to be effective at all. Do people ever actually click on their ads? Here's what I do: I see an advertisement, and then scroll past it to whatever I'm intending to look at. If I get spam in an email, I delete it without so much as opening it. I've never once actually clicked on an ad.

Of course, I have a complete hatred of all forms of advertisements. When ads come on TV, I turn the channel to a station that isn't airing ads. When ads come on the radio, I switch to a station that's playing music. I've installed an ad-blocker in Firefox which does away with most ads (although I occasionally have to disable it to get videos to play correctly). When I go to buy something, I do my own research and don't go by what advertisements say (because every company is going to claim they're the best). As a matter of fact, the more annoying/frequent I see ads for a company, the less likely I am to buy it. If they're product was good in the first place, there wouldn't be a need to advertise it so much, as it would sell itself (via word-of-mouth).

Do people actually buy into ads? Are they really that effective?

[Robzula]

I feel the same way. Like when that Bing was starting up, all I could think of was "And yet Google's already done so well and I've never seen an ad from them."

[Plo]

Errrrrrrg!!! in my opinion it (spam) is getting out of hand DOWN WITH SPAM!!!

^rant^

[Andi]

And it happened again. Why is it always at afternoon?

[Plo]

And it happened again. Why is it always at afternoon?

LOL i live in the eastern part of the US so its always in the morning for me