Increase in spam on AAM

[Brendan Burgess]

this is an ongoing problem

no need to report it.

in particular dont say "askaboutmoney has been hacked". it has not.

 

[DannyBoyD]

We normally don't see it, no doubt due to all the work ye do; it did seem particularly bad this morning.

 

[arbitron]

When you click Report, it says "Report reason" - can you edit/add to this to say "Please do not report spam"?

Would help to remind people and save unnecessary reports.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Just to give you a sense of how heavily we are spammed. We ban a lot of IP addresses, and this is how often these bans are triggered.

 

[Brendan Burgess]

We have other blacklists in place and other means of detecting spam, but despite these, there is some new source able to get through with the "Dubai girls" spam which we delete as soon as we see it.

We are looking at ways to stop this before it appears.

Brendan

 

[Gordon Gekko]

there is some new source able to get through with the "Dubai girls" spam

I think the best thing would be for a few of us to fly over and investigate this ‘Dubai girls’ thing personally.

 

[Sue Ellen]

I think I'll investigate the casting spells one. Wouldn't I just have a field day with that

 

[Pinoy adventure]

Just to give you a sense of how heavily we are spammed. We ban a lot of IP addresses, and this is how often these bans are triggered.

View attachment 8300

A busy day by the looks of things

 

[PGF2016]

this is an ongoing problem

no need to report it.

in particular dont say "askaboutmoney has been .......". it has not.

@Brendan Burgess I'd be slow to put a phrase about the site being hacked in a comment lest it be spotted by Google and show up in search results.

 

[Morris111]

I just got banned as soon as registered...

 

[Brendan Burgess]

When did you register?
Did you complete the registration process and get banned before posting?
Did you post and then get banned for a serious breach of the Posting Guidelines?

Some users are put into an approval queue - did this happen to you?

What user name did you use? There is no Morris111 marked as banned?

Do you know the IP address from which you registered?

Brendan

 

[Scoobydoobydoo]

Can you put a filter in place to remove all post with a + symbol in the title?
Cant see many "real" users typing an equation into the title....just a taught...

 

[Jazz01]

@Brendan Burgess - not sure how these "unwelcomed posts" are cleaned up etc, whether it's from the hosting company, yourself and/or the moderators, but I assume that it is very time consuming. There are many many long term users on here, who would have the know-how to help clean things out, even if it's deleting the posts, banning the accounts etc, if you want to delegate such permissions on a temporary basis.

Just an idea to help keep your (and also our) site clean from such posts

 

[Brendan Burgess]

not sure how these "unwelcomed posts" are cleaned up etc,

Hi Jazz

It's simple and quick enough.

Most spam is stopped before it gets through, so you don't see it.

At the end of each of these posts there is a "spam" button.
One click on this - bans the user and deletes all his posts.
it then flashes up users with the same IP address - and gives us the option to ban and delete them as well.

It's under control. It just depends on when a moderator comes online. They often post in the middle of the night so they are up longer than we would like.

Brendan

 

[Brendan Burgess]

Can you put a filter in place to remove all post with a + symbol in the title?

Good idea thanks.

I am discussing with support if we can ban posts with Dubai and Delhi in the titles.

We might not need to do that as we are exploring other approaches.

Brendan