Spammers
There has been a marked increase in the amount of spam (particularly with "adult" themes) that is posted here in the last week or so. Dstroy and I and the other members who can moderate content delete these posts as quickly as possible, but sometimes that is not before they get sent out in the site digest emails or they show up in syndication. My apologies if you've been on the receiving end of some of those: not what I want to find in my Inbox before I've had my first cup of coffee either. Know that we try to kill them and close the accounts that posted them as quickly as possible.
Using the "flag as offensive" link at the bottom of such posts would help me. I think if 2 community members do that, the offending posts will get unreleased and will disappear for the rest of the site visitors.
I could make it more difficult for spammers to sign up, but of course that would make it more difficult for new folks who legitimately want to participate in the baking discussions to sign up. So I'm hesitant to make it too tough.
Comments
If 2 of us flag something as offensive and the post deletes, should we still let you know so that their membership can be terminated, as I've done in the past?
Betty
When something is marked offensive, Floyd can see it in the abuse queue with his tools so the user can be banned. But it helps to flip them out of the stream asap - some of the stuff was absolutely the last thing in the world that I wanted to see when waking up.
you might find this funny but the one post that was selling conterfit software left there website and it had a phone number. I called it using skype and left a nasty voice mail using some 4 letter words and told them i hope they rot in jail
my tech support started getting spamed this week also but the accounts need to be activated befor thay can do anything so that stops it in its tracks
I have flagged a few this week, but totally missed the adult themed ones. This site is usually so clean, it is a surprise to see the obvious sales pitches. Glad to have missed the others.
ROFL! I couldn't resist that one! Sorry ya'll! I need sleep!
Audra
...I'm subscribed to the RSS feed and my 4 year old son was sitting on my lap as that porn feed today with images displayed.
I trashed it ASAP, not sure if he noticed anything but to say the least it was very embarasing.
Have you considered a delay in publishing the RSS feed?
Salute,
Mark
Yes it is the picture content on the RSS that is the problem for me too. I simply don't want to see such stuff at any time.
Is there any way to at the very least have the RSS feeds text only, without the pictures? So that we have to come to the site if we want to see the content? I can pick and choose which threads I open on the site itself, but not in the RSS.
If that isn't possible, I will have to cancel the RSS feed I suppose and go back to just checking the site.
I get the same thing. I read TFL most often in Live Journal. And I have a 4 year old and a 7 year old, so I share the same concerns and which is why I am here apologizing and notifying the community that I am trying to work on the problem.
I just switched the RSS to be titles only. That, obviously, will make it less useful, but it'll keep the porn out of your RSS reader until I figure out a way to keep the trolls away.
I've blocked any Russian email addresses from signing up for membership since that is where many of the spammers originate, but unfortunately many of them register with GMail accounts now, making them indistinguishable from legitimate members until they make an inappropriate post.
I worked out how to just have the titles download not the main threads, which will help somewhat.
Such a shame people have nothing better to do with themselves!
I just installed and am testing Mollom to see if this takes care of the problem. Please let me know what you think.
i don't know if this will help but on my board i have in place a 2 hyperlink limit in the body of a post and zero alowed in the signture
since most of these spam posts have a lot of links the limit stops the post with a warning and will not the post to be completed the bots cant edit their post on the fly so the link limit kills them.
also with my board a new account can do nothing untill i manualy actvate it. the bots want to reg and post right away. so after the reg the time delay kills them.
ps: i should have taped my skype call to the conterfit software guy boy did i give him a piece of my mind!
Let's hope the new thing he's installed works - the problem with not allowing new members until it's been manually activated means that we have to guess about whether or not the new members are legit - and we're not online 24 hours a day, plus having to wait for us to manually allow a new user to post totally messes things up for folks in other time zones. Besides, how would we know if the new user was going to post spam either?
But *knock on wood* this is the first time I've been able to check back after a couple of hours has passed without having to delete anything or ban any users, so hopefully this thing will help without slowing down the site too much.
...Appreciate your efforts.
Still beyond my understanding why those evil minded persons do such a thing.
Salute,
Mark
Thank you so much Floyd for your efforts, till now I did not watch anything, thanks god !
But do not hesitate to tell us if there is anything that we can do to help you to stop these stupids.
Thank you Floyd and Dstroy !
Should we use the same "flag as offensive" process to identify deliverate advertising links in messages that have nothing to do with bread making. I found one today that contains a link to a cigar site in the thread about aluminium vs wooden pizza peels.
yes please! This will help us a lot!
...That Cigar post was crafty fur sure.
You know...it wouldnt be so hard to sort through the spammy comments if so many legitimate titles that actually are completely innocent and *really are about bread* didn't sound so darn naughty:
I mean, consider some of these post titles that then turned out to truly be ABOUT BREAD:
Whoa! Please don't burn your bottoms!
Caring For Your Couche
bottom rather pale but nice form
Nice buns!
Need a rise
ideal retardation
tight crumb
Pot Bread
Can't Get a Rise
gaping holes
lame
Slap and fold
Frothy white bottom
loaf joggling
Too Soft
Oops..sorry.. you did make me chuckle..
Betty
...Nice buns is a classic.
A few weeks ago, for Peters tests, I searched a bunch of sites for different rustic bun recipes, "nice buns" was overpowering. :-)