What the Spam?

[DarkerKat]

Never seen the board this bad, what is the best way for users to help with the spam accounts constantly posting today - does reporting them help or is it just making more work for moderators?

 

[Boudica]

I usually set them to ignore. I don't know what reporting really does. It's got to be a lot of work for the admin, but this is really obnoxious. It's making the forum useless.

 

[Johnny Best]

It’s from that Chinese guy who was posting the other day. A Temubot.

 

[Ewan yu]

No one has sent me yet... Probably blocked me

 

[Ewan yu]

What is it like? Are there screenshots?

 

[Boudica]

It’s from that Chinese guy who was posting the other day. A Temubot.

You may be right about that......

 

[Boudica]

It won't stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think somehow someone turned a bot loose on the forum. we are under attack.

 

[Smoke_Jaguar]

The goal on these kinds of bots is to get things posted for search engines and cross referencing to get their scammy sites higher in rankings so they show up. Not very effective, but also not a ton of work. Crappy search engines once again making life worse.

 

[Bobby H]

The jerk posting all the spam is pretty relentless. I'm not sure what the solution would be. Logins via 2 factor authentication, captcha, etc?

 

[Ewan yu]

Are you referring to these posts?

 

[White Haus]

Yes.

 

[Bobby H]

Yes. There are pages and pages of that crap. Whoever is doing it needs to be banned.

 

[Boudica]

The problem is that it's coming from a LOT of different accounts. I haven't taken the time to look, but I suspect some virus has been able to get into dormant accounts again, run a script and post over and over. This has to be automated by something. I think Bobby may be right about making it harder to log into the site. We went through this before, but the special authentication was temporary, like a one-time thing. May have to bring that back.

 

[Ewan yu]

Now I understand that really scared me. I thought you were talking about me, especially since I’ve just joined the community, and recently it seems I’m the only new Chinese member here.

 

[Ewan yu]

I assume the moderators have some tools to deal with these bots

 

[damonCA21]

Welcome to the advances in AI

 

[damonCA21]

I assume the moderators have some tools to deal with these bots

I dont think anyone suspected you were an undercover bot

 

[Signstein]

Wow, other than this one, I don't see a single legit thread on this site...

 

[Ewan yu]

That said, does this kind of advertising actually work?

 

[damonCA21]

I imagine most people just ignore it, but it clogs the forum for genuine posters