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Spam :( (Read 17608 times)
PhiLho 
Re: Spam :(
Reply #30 - Feb 17th, 2010, 3:29am  
More annoying: apparently, they do a Google search on the current topic, and copy technical answers to blend in the forum. Example: in answer to old, unanswered topic "Stage size changing with browser?", I see this message (from mere100): "In response to my previous post, Making Flash movies obey browser text size changes, [...]", from somebody with one message on the forum, talking about Flash... I see also topics on C, C++, C# and so on...
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gll
Re: Spam :(
Reply #31 - Feb 17th, 2010, 4:19am  
Yes, and it appears that some of us are spending time to reply them...
http://processing.org/discourse/yabb2/num_1266196583.html#7

It's too confusing... and the forum is unusable.

Again, what about the IPs
And what about suspending registrations
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LaBelle / ANAR.ch / LaBelle.spaceKIT.ca
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Cedric
Re: Spam :(
Reply #32 - Feb 17th, 2010, 4:50am  
i know what you are talking about. i was not sure if it was spam when answering... but like you said, it starts to get unusable we really have to think about a solution here...
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... twitter.com/CedricKiefer
WWW CedricKiefer 9570393 CedricKiefer  
Cedric
Re: Spam :(
Reply #33 - Feb 17th, 2010, 3:02pm  
i thought they only track the people who have one of these alexa bars installed. spammers probably dont... or was this long time ago when they did it that way ?
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... twitter.com/CedricKiefer
WWW CedricKiefer 9570393 CedricKiefer  
PhiLho 
Re: Spam :(
Reply #34 - Feb 18th, 2010, 12:40am  
Ouch, somehow gll's message about Alexa was deleted when I deleted three messages by spammers (two of them already deactivated). Sorry, even though I am pretty sure I haven't checked gll's message.
gll is right, newcomers to this forum shouldn't spend first message on commenting on spam... The three I deleted suggested to suspend registration. Either they just copied the suggestion made above, or it is an attack to suspend the activity on this forum.
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alvaro
Re: Spam :(
Reply #35 - Feb 18th, 2010, 2:18am  
the only reason I can think of, someone would want to kill the forum, is to steal the domain name. But that's just my two cents of dark energy. It might just as well be an artistic experiment gone berserk.
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REAS
Re: Spam :(
Reply #36 - Feb 18th, 2010, 6:35am  
I enabled the Captcha last night and it didn't seem to have an effect. I disabled new registration this morning. I hated to do that. This is so odd.
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PhiLho 
Re: Spam :(
Reply #37 - Feb 18th, 2010, 7:39am  
Yes, I didn't believe in Captcha here, since the spammers are not bots, so they can easily answer them.
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koogy
Re: Spam :(
Reply #38 - Feb 20th, 2010, 3:19am  
that's a lot better, thanks.

there are still a couple of threads which are 90% fake posters, the movie maker thread, the cellphone webcam thread. could leave them as sacrificial anodes and a way of harvesting spam accounts 8)

i'd be tempted to disable all the obvious spam accounts as well, the ones with links to removal firms and gemstone stores and lawyers and leather wallets and chiropracters and carpet cleaning and sheet music and and and... (all human life is there...)
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Cedric
Re: Spam :(
Reply #39 - Feb 20th, 2010, 4:04am  
the facebook threat is a bad one too... full of spam
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... twitter.com/CedricKiefer
WWW CedricKiefer 9570393 CedricKiefer  
PhiLho 
Re: Spam :(
Reply #40 - Feb 20th, 2010, 5:57am  
Just looked again at Facebook and Cellphone as webcam threads, no spam there (ie. no commercial links in signature).
I removed a number of messages in the former, at least... Smiley

Looks like stopping registrations calmed down the spammers, but that's an annoying (for the forum and would be legitimate users) measure. Let's hope it will drive away spammers. After all, there are lot of unmaintained forums where spamming is a pleasure without people to interfere... Grin
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koogy
Re: Spam :(
Reply #41 - Feb 26th, 2010, 9:18am  
i see registrations have been enabled again... 8(
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PhiLho 
Re: Spam :(
Reply #42 - Feb 27th, 2010, 1:54am  
And spammers are back...  Angry
Just removed a post from skylinks with business card link in WWW button, just answering "I don't understand this thread"...
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REAS
Re: Spam :(
Reply #43 - Feb 27th, 2010, 8:10pm  
I disabled new member accounts again and posted a message about the spam here: http://processing.org/discourse/yabb2/num_1267330009.html

I tried enabling and disabling the accounts in a few different ways to try to fix the problem. Still working on a good solution with Ben.
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PhiLho 
Re: Spam :(
Reply #44 - Mar 1st, 2010, 5:10am  
Just looked at the latest messages in Software, Documentation,  Website Suggestions & Website, Documentation, Book Bugs sections.
No new spammers, but as expected/feared, a bunch of recent semi-articulate answers from new users got signatures with commercial links. Of course, I removed all these messages.

Suggestion: eliminate regularly all users with 0 posts after some days: it means either they made an account they don't use... or some moderator removed the only message which had spam. At least it will clean the list of members, making it of more reasonable size. If a legitimate user just registered and had nothing to say at first, they can register again.

Looking at new users, there are names just suspicious: hubfreetraffic, convertvideos21, german-beer-glasses (sic), disneycollect01 (with a WWW commercial address!) and so on.
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