Got SPAM?

[mmm4444bot]

If you see any SPAM on the boards, please do not post a reply to it.

Instead, report these posts using the "Report Post" icon.

This icon appears at the lower-left corner of each post; it looks like a black triangle with a white exclamation point.

Cheers ~ Mark :cool:

 

[mmm4444bot]

Identifying Potential SPAM

The regular contributors to these boards are familiar with the following scenario.


A new member joins, and they immediately post a trivial reply in somebody else's thread.

They may post only once, or they may post similar statements in a handful of threads.

These threads may be months or years old, or they may be more recent.

The content of the new post is generally off-topic or adds nothing to the conversation at hand.


My research indicates that more often than not, these trivial posts come from SPAMMERS.

PLEASE do not respond in the thread to these posts; use the Report-Post Icon, instead, to report the post as trivial or off-topic, so that a moderator may investigate.



Here is a recent example (clickable thumbnail):



evabuick from Essex is actually evilbuick from

Country: China
State/Region: Guangdong
City: Shenzhen
Latitude: 22.5333
Longitude: 114.1333



Other typical replies go like this: "hi, i am so glad to find here - and look forward to help in future thanks and much good work!" OR "Your methods show good thinking; you will do good to study hard."



Thank you for your considerations, in flagging these suspect posts for review.

 

[mmm4444bot]

Please also see THIS THREAD (regarding fake users). Cheers :cool:

 

[mmm4444bot]

Yikes! :shock:

42% of the most-recent 203 individuals to join our community have been forever banned. (That's 85 usernames, over the last 10 days.)

I am somewhat discouraged to learn that spam-o-matic is not identifying all of the spammers who clearly have a long-established history in the stopforumspam database. (I have no motivation to research why this is; I feel that my time is better spent scrubbing the boards.)

It's also becoming crystal clear to me that both Google and Microsoft are not doing much to stop repeat offenders who create tens of thousands of junk e-mail accounts each month for spreading SPAM. Situations that are obvious to me must also be obvious to Google and Microsoft. The owners of various anti-spam databases share abuse-evidence with Google and Microsoft, yet those giants allow abusive accounts to remain open and active for months on end.

I wonder how much revenue is realized by Google and Microsoft from all of that account activity.