|
Hi Paizo website crew,
I’ve noticed recently several accounts have been spamming the forums with unsolicited and irrelevant advertising material. I flagged one such dedicated thread in the off topic forum a few days ago, today an account ‘fghfgj’ has been posting advertising material into other threads (no other posts for this account except today’s advertising posts). I’ve flagged one such post, and humbly request that the account be blocked and all its posts be deleted.
Not sure if there’s anything that can be done to stop such accounts and posts in future?
I just went to the spammer's profile and flagged all the posts, that hopefully catches the attention of the Paizo peeps. Although it's Sunday in the US still...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I just flagged 11 more posts by "cfghdgsw". We might need a flag reason "Spam" :(
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I saw them and flagged them too.
| 19 people marked this as a favorite. |
I vote the flagging option should be "Spam spam spam spam spam"
I've always wondered, isn't there some kind of legal recourse one can take against those companies mentioned in such spam posts?
Maybe we need an anti-spam equivalent of Anonymous, someone who can take down all those websites linked to in all the spam messages being sent. Or investigate who's behind the spam bots, so legal action can be taken against them (if possible).
Oh, flagged all the spam posts too.
Flagged as well.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
All the posts I could find were removed.
I just flagged 11 more posts by "cfghdgsw". We might need a flag reason "Spam" :(
I kind of think the abusive/insulting tag covers it pretty well. ;)
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
If it's spam you're looking for...
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Deleted and blocked. Keep flaggin' them - thanks! :D
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nuke him from orbit!
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
but I don't liiiike spam!
Sorry to hear that, Macabre, because it means you have no soul…
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry to hear that, Macabre, because it means you have no soul…
But it does mean he has taste. ;)
I don't like spam either ...
(1)or pretty much any meat that comes out of a can, except maybe tuna.
(2)or pretty much any unsolicited advertising, except maybe those for truly off the wall products, like inflatable xmas trees, do it yourself home solar energy systems, [insert random nationality here] brides (gottta ask why the grooms are selling them though) and various canned meat products.
New account
Sent message to Liz.
|
|
How does this work then?
Do they auto-register and then have some random-posting script?
Are there any steps to registering which might catch this stuff?
I always thought it would be cool to have a little excerpt from some flavour text (maybe from a web-fiction piece or one of the novels, and it could be a picture of the text) and a security question of: "What is the first name in this piece of writing?"
Bots aren't going to be able to distinguish between invented fantasy proper nouns and anything else, but humans will find it easy.
And it would be cool to have people reading about Radovan when they registered.
Senior Software Developer
|
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
It looks to me like it's a human filling out the signup form. I figure they're probably paid a nickel for each time they post their spam. Pretty crappy life, if you ask me.
I'm not inclined to put up more technological barriers like captchas because they annoy the hell out of the very people they're supposed to protect. For now the flagging system works great for catching these.
Again...
It looks to me like it's a human filling out the signup form. I figure they're probably paid a nickel for each time they post their spam. Pretty crappy life, if you ask me.
I'm not inclined to put up more technological barriers like captchas because they annoy the hell out of the very people they're supposed to protect. For now the flagging system works great for catching these.
Not sure how much code is involved in the flagging system, but is it worth adding "Spam" as an alternative flag? Failing that, is there one you prefer us to use? (I've been using "Breaks Other Guidelines" for lack of a more obvious option.)
I feel personally insulted and by abusive spread of unsolicited adds unrelated to roleplaying games on the forum.
In this case, if you poke around for the company in question nearly every result is forum spam presumably from the same source. I think they know and don't care.
If only such companies could be held responsible for spam on their behalf. Of course, that could be problematic as other companies could use it against them, but still... oh the joy of a spam free internet!
|
Senior Software Developer
|
Aberzombie: I think they are all exactly the same. We've discussed adding a content-based filter to posting but my experience is that just starts an arms race where we have to continually revisit a complicated regex to match their ever-more-inventive attempts to get around the filter. We're trying a couple other things today, we'll see how it goes.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Wouldn't it be funny if they spammed this thread?
Ironic, actually.
I think PMG needs to bust out that banhammer and go all Paul Bunyan and see what it does to the bandwidth. Sometimes, you just need to hit something to get it to work.
Here I thought this thread was about Heathansson or Aberzombie. ;)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sometimes, you just need to hit something to get it to work.*smacks Urizen*
There.
Did it work? Is the spammer gone?
;-)
I don't know, but if you had hit me any harder, I may have actually found work.
Wishful thinking...
He strikes again, on a Friday night when no one might be minding the boards....
