Spammers (and other idiots)

Hi

Spammers will always end up on forums, websites, blogs etc. as while you can block many, using keywords, IP addresses, signup options for email verification etc. you cannot block the manual signups.

Majorgeeks and have to credit Tim (MA) for all of this, has added a few great tools to aid us in blocking many spammers in the first place, then a few auto tools to moderate posts (now general members do not see the admin side that we do and these blocked members posts), then there is "report a post" and please do carry on using this method if one like this slips through as we cannot be everywhere.

The admin/mod team here do pro-actively review the signups as we know the types of user names, email addresses and IPs used. So spam these days is not so many weekly, we used to many years back, were getting 100s a day, now maybe 10 a week slip through.

So thanks all for continuing to "report a post" but dont fixate on spam, report and we can handle it, just continue helping others as you all do in the tech areas, its really appreciated.

 

Hi Muskie

Yeah a pita at times, but in your list highlights exactly what I was mentioning earlier, and this is not for you as you likely already are aware, but for others, look down the list and look for commonalities, fullstops in email addresses, junk names, same email address and different user names, 4 digit numbers at end of user names, user names with cap lower cap lower case.

After a while you can spot them a mile off, and alot of the spammers are a few person teams using automated software and not loads of individuals, so they are a "thing" over a "he" or "she"

 

Errrrrr NO.

Typically usage of throwaway email.

 

Interesting ideas, Time Zones or knowing members time zones, not a bad idea for users of the forum in general, I'm on a car one that has users GMT +/- on it like GMT+1 etc, but as I originally posted, spammers will not care about this as they are not always people, in general they run some spamming software so that runs 24/7

We also have a small mix of admin/mods in different time zones, so covers a fair bit.

Posting limits, we did try this and thought it was still active, but if not its worth us revisiting, the only issue I can see is that with a legit member who has a question that can be replied too in rapid conversational way, it may put them off, but that said it would be rare for someone to be typing replies back to tech questions that quick if they are being accurate with replies, over one word answers (the users its like getting blood out of a stone with, just to get what Win version they use).

But ideas to ponder, thanks