PLEASE REPORT SPAM!

[David A. Goldfarb]

This is just a reminder to everyone that if you see spam, particularly if it is posted in the middle of an otherwise legitimate thread, you should use the "Report Post" button to alert the moderators.

Lately we've been getting spam like this which may have some nonsense text to fool search engines, or the post may be some vague sentence like "That's really interesting!" with a link to a site that sells electronic gadgets or even pornography, and in the worst case we were just hit with spam that actually included pornographic images in the post.

If you see anything of this nature and report it, an email goes out to all the moderators and to Sean, and as long as one of us is online (we're in four international time zones, so there is usually someone online), we can quickly ban the spammer and delete all spam posts, once we know the spammer's ID. If they've posted multiple spam posts, you don't need to report them all. We just need one. We can often catch and eliminate spam this way within five minutes of its appearance, but don't count on someone else reporting it. The sooner it is caught, the better, particularly if APUG is being used as a vehicle for pornography.

Thanks to everyone who has been helping to keep APUG spam free!

 

[Ian Grant]

Thanks David, I guess it was you that deleted the Pornography post I reported. This was hard core porn and needed removing fast.

Ian

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Yes, thanks to you, Ian and to one other member who reported it.

 

[pentaxuser]

David. You and the other moderators have done a fantastic job of catching this kind of thing at source. I have seen very little get through since I have been here and when it has, a number of APUGers with "keen noses" for this have acted swiftly.

Funny this should come up now. A group of us were discussing "unwelcome intruders" at lunch during the APUG tour of Ilford on Friday last. Given our numbers and the size of the site we are well marshalled and I am sure we'll all keep our eyes open now.

pentaxuser

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Thanks to everyone who has been stepping up the effort to catch spam since posting this thread. I think we've deleted the work of three spammers and banned them from the site since yesterday. If more participate, this speeds up our response time, and we can often stop the spammer while they are online, before they post more spam.

 

[Sean]

Thanks David! This has been a big problem so tonight I installed two new tools on the registration form to help out. The first tool shows 12 out of a group of 40images and asks a question, then you must choose the image relating to the question. The second is on the final registration pages and asks what 2+2+1 is. This should help stop some of these registration bots. They must have found a way past the standard system somehow.

 

[Fintan]

Members should also be careful of email alerts when they have subscribed to threads and forums. Naturally when a spammer does their thing it can be sent as an email alert from APUG.

No problem really just something to watch out for.

 

[Andy K]

I don't read the email alerts, I delete them then log in to read the thread referenced in the email title.