yea but joe's got enough on his plate

and that's what the spam button is for

P.S. there are 4 potential spammers on the who's new bar right now

Busy

Yeah, I get that Joe's busy.  However, somebody still has to handle all the posts that we mark as users, in case legitimate content accidentally gets flagged, which does happen.  Most forum platforms out there do seem to have settings that allow for some kind of automatic flagging or deletion.  As the moderator of a Yahoo group, I have almost entirely stopped spam by forcing moderated status on all new users, which cut down my work a lot, so there is a potential time savings to be had.  I was curious if the software Joe's using has an effective way to do this.

sorry

didn't understand what you meant, but yes that would be very effective

We should have a contest!!

I'm in for over ten in the last 30 minutes.  Longest i have seen was posted 37 seconds ago so as a group we are doing pretty good

Steve

it is just stupid

i just blasted three in about a minute

but hey, it's mildly entertaining

helping out

I just pinged two spam messages as well. Pretty aggressive stuff today.

Eric

I think I've shut them all down....

I've gone in and blocked all the accounts that appeared to be spam related (which I do on a semi-regular basis anyway).

Hopefully this spam assault is over.

its never over!

"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France,we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." -Winston Churchill

or something like that, those pesky spammers don't stand a chance!

Grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter

I've set up message rules that will, at least, prevent anyone from using the names of two popular pharmaceutical products in their username, as well as blocked anyone from using an email address from a specific domain that I have never seen a legit user from.

Hopefully it'll slow them down a bit.

Re: Jeff

That should eliminate much of the problem I'd hope.  Good to know there was an option to let you block the suspect user names.  Maybe new spammers will just use different names and keep going if there isn't a block on the "dirty words" in the post body though.  We'll see soon enough I guess.

RichardGeorge....

Jeff,

Looks like they are getting "smarter"...  RichardGeorge is a spammer, I just wiped out two of his and put them iin your bucket..

Ryan

And Still more....

The who's new box makes it easy to see the obvious spamers

Steve

I GOT THREE!

.. in chinese 1 min ago.

I Asked...

I asked if there was a way that MRH could add a flag user option to the account page of all new users that could be used by MRH old timers and other MRH faithful to temporarily suspend an account for spamming etc. and throw it into a que for moderators to look at when time permits.

Maybe it can not be done?  I don't know, Joe has so far been too busy to respond.

Not easily done

Not Easily Done

Joe,

Fair enough.  I just wondered if it could be easily implemented and if so it seemed like a good solution to an annoying, never ending problem.

In fact, as you know, the more popular MRH becomes, the more spammers will target the site.

Don't live long anyways!

Seems that the spammers don't live long on this site anyways.  We the "legitimate" posters seem to police it quite well.  Most spam I've seen don't last but a few minutes on here.

Short Lifespan

Indeed, all spam is very short lived at MRH because of the number of dedicated members who use the spam button as it is intended to be used without abusing the function.

However if something extra could be easily implemented that would allow one of those dedicated users to halt a spammer, well that's one up for the good guys.

Sadly, that is much easier said than done, I am told.  In that case, I tend to like Rob's suggestion that new users have their first post moderated.  But that is an inconvenience to the legitimate new user who just wants to comment or ask a question.

Without a doubt the system works quite well as it is, but just like there is always another spammer, there is always room for improvement in how we deal with spam.  At least in my opinion.

I like Spam

It's pretty tasty, especially if you fry it.

I have to agree, we seem to do a pretty good job of policing the site.  Of course, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, so maybe it makes a lot for work for somebody.  As for moderating first posts, I think it might turn away some users.  The ability to post and even get responses almost instantly is one of the great things about this place.

Spam is my morning breakfast routine...

Spammer spammed

2 or 3 years ago I read about a spammer who was identified over the net and had a US address. Whoever got him published his street address in a newsgroup. Then everybody started subscribing him to ANY magazine available using the convenient cards, ANY mailing list, etc. In fact, ANYTHING that would go thru the mail. And then the good ole USPS started delivering...... in increasingly larger quantities. In a very short time he was getting literally truckloads daily. And he had to wade thru the mess to get what he really wanted to keep. Revenge is so sweet!.

I think I've shut them all

I hope we haven't blocked all of them as I actually enjoy "spam hunting" on these forums, and derive great amusement and pleasure zapping them whenever I find one.  My personal best is nailing one that was less than 20 seconds old.

See what happens

See what happens when I step away from the forums for a few days! I miss all the fun!

And, just for the culinary record, spam has got nothing on scrapple!

-George

A different spam technique

I haven't seen this one before.  It's actually rather creative, albeit annoying.  User kitapbigi has decided to copy a valid post (or part of one, anyway) and then add a few spam links at the end.