How do we stop them?

[Lush]

The 'spammer/user' thing is spreading to other sites as well. I have a 'friend' on facebook who keeps sending me these offers for cheap vintage jewellery but is perfectly civil the rest of the time. What's going on here? Is there a massive spamming conspiracy happening?

Hacked account. Tell your friend that this is happening, so they change their password.

This could happen on BD as well, I guess - I mean, if it already happens on Twitter... Keeping our passwords nice and complicated is always a good policy in general.

[Eönwë]

Three in a row... that's bad.

[Lindale]

And another three in a row. Goodness me...

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

We should at least have fun with it; otherwise it'll drive us mad.

Ask yourself: What would Turgon do?

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Ask yourself: What would Turgon do?

Once they had found their way to his hidden city unbidden, I believe the usual procedure was to keep them there for the rest of their lives. Doesn't really seem like what we'd want to do.
Then again, if they became a nuisance, he'd send them bungee-jumping off Caragdûr without a rope. That sounds more attractive.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

I was suggesting the rather drastic step of building very large walls around this city.

Those who wish to join would have to get past the eagles.

[Lindale]

Or let's get a nice little Melian-ish fence around us, preciousss!

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

Well, a lot of these idjits are Trolls, here to disrupt rather than sell spam (which is why they should be ignored and left to be deleted by the moderators). Perhaps if we could find a way to get them to crawl out of their dark holes and into the sunlight, they'd turn to stone and save us a lot of time in building the walls.

[skip spence]

Some of these spammers are an odd breed indeed. Not sure they are Trolls though because they get kicks trolling for replies and reactions by posting stuff that isn't sincere but generates heat. Around here a good troll topic would be: PJ is a great film maker who made a dull book exiting or Balrogs have wings, dumbass. But I can't see how anyone could find it amusing to post the dull and barely literate posts of today for example. And for us it's mildly annoying but hardly something that raises the blood pressure. My guess (as a computer illiterate) are slightly more sophisticated spambots, first posing as a serious poster (and Danielle Steele fans apparently ) without trying to sell anything, hoping to remain unnoticed and then... uhm... gets down to some sort of dirty business no doubt...

[Loslote]

We could always add a new requirement to the registering form - instead of typing Tolkien, they would have to type the name of the Downer who got them on the site, or the reason they found it. If they don't have a reason or a sponser, then die, evil spambot.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

But then they would just invent reasons, either with standard texts or generated from real posts. Granted, it might be easy to spot a few of these generated ones - say:

I like werewolf but I agree with Mister Underhill. Inktomi Slurp Spiders have wings.

That's little problem. But can we refuse a new member for simply stating:

I like Lord of the Rings

? Easy for the bots, but simple also for prospective Downers.

Perhaps Esty should just interview everyone via chat. Give her a raise and I'm sure she'll do it.

[Loslote]

Actually, that (interviews with potential newbies) has the potential to be extremely amusing (at least to me). Hm...*contemplates writing a fanfic about it* Maybe over the weekend.

[alatar]

"How do we stop them?"

"To fight the bug, we must understand the bug. We can ill afford another Klendathu."

"We must meet this threat with our courage, our valor, indeed with our very lives to ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates this galaxy *now and always*!"

Or something like that.

[The Might]

I guess the interviews are a joke right?

Just googled a bit looking for possible answers on how to achieve this on a vBulletin forum. Upgrading to version 3.6 would bring improved image captchas, but I'm not sure how much that would help... it would against bots, but if these are real people then it wouldn't help.

Also, a couple of addons were mentioned which either make it unattractive for spammers to post in the forum by blocking the links they post or addons detecting keywords in their posts as spam and sending them to the moderation queue.

Otherwise, the only other idea I found interesting was moderating new members, so only allowing them to post once they were manually unlocked by an admin. Not sure how well that would work though.

[Loslote]

Originally Posted by The Might

I guess the interviews are a joke right?

Yes. That's why I added the . Mostly I am always joking, so it's a pretty safe assumption to make.

[Lalaith]

Following on from Loslote's idea, change typing Tolkien to answering a question....What has it got in its pocketsss?

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

I might suggest asking people to type something like my name, but then, even I have to cut and paste it to get it right. And even most Tolkien fans look at it and go "what the ----?"

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Dear member who used several * to tell a spammer to leave: annoying as they may be, they are bots. They will not react to any responses by you or others, whether polite or profane. The only solution is for us to ban them and delete their posts/threads, which we do as fast as we can. Thank you.

[Eönwë]

It seems that two of them have recently joined, but not yet posted (1 and 2).

Just thought I'd mention it as I saw in them in the Active and Newest members section at the bottom of the front page, and they have no posts yet.

[Inziladun]

If you search the Members List by the number of posts, probably the last eight or nine pages or so (ie, the ones that have zero posts) are almost exclusively spammers. Sometimes they'll lie dormant for a while before slamming the host forum.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

It seems that two of them have recently joined, but not yet posted (1 and 2).

Just thought I'd mention it as I saw in them in the Active and Newest members section at the bottom of the front page, and they have no posts yet.

At least one of them will have a bad hair day when it posts.

[Aiwendil]

Thanks, Eonwe! Both banned.

I do often check the newest member and ban obvious spammers, and I've gone through the last pages of the member list a few times and cleaned them out. I'll do so again soon if I get a chance.

[Inziladun]

I'd like to say that I applaud the recent efforts of the Admin and Mod staff to curb the spammers.
In the last few weeks especially, I've seen many obvious spammers (random-looking Member Names, with links in the sig line to product or service websites) banned almost as soon as they joined.
Additionally, a great number of them that had registered in the past but had never posted, were cleared from the Members List.

Thanks for your hard work, and keep it up please!

[Mister Underhill]

To turn this into a total love-fest, let me say that the diligence of members in giving us the heads-up on spam and spammers is a huge factor in helping us keep a relatively tight lid on the problem. So good work and keep it up back at ya!

[Galadriel55]

Maybe in addition to typing Tolkien new "members" should be required to answer a basic LOTR question - something pretty obvious that also is obvious in the movies. Something like Who was NOT a member of the Fellowship: and then choices a)Frodo, b)Gandalf, and c)Sauron.
Or something along the lines of that. Maybe they should type the name of so-and-so instead of "guess&checking". That would make people use their brains ** and it is known that spammers usually don't have them.

[Mithalwen]

Anyone else notice that we have a better class of spambot these days? Latest one posts something vaguely relevant to thread title - if they had 't given them selves away with obviously advertising name and sig-link they are getting close to ressembling a hapless newcomer whose English isn't as remarkable as so many of our ESL speakers.... scary...

[Anguirel]

The rape (in the Proserpine not DSK sense) of an actual RP thread always feels disproportionately traumatic

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Anguirel

The rape (in the Proserpine not DSK sense) of an actual RP thread always feels disproportionately traumatic

As a curiosity, Google search reveals that all those educational facts about "Max the Mad, Duke of Gascoyne" come from another "King's Players" game.

[Anguirel]

Nerwen, you are truly a noted scholar and thinker

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Anyone else notice that we have a better class of spambot these days? Latest one posts something vaguely relevant to thread title - if they had 't given them selves away with obviously advertising name and sig-link they are getting close to ressembling a hapless newcomer whose English isn't as remarkable as so many of our ESL speakers.... scary...

I am still wondering about the efficacy of a spambot. Is there any industry numbers that show statistically that this is a useful marketing tool? I can see a group of spambots at dinner at the Ashtabula Marriot Motel, Convention Center and Gas 'n' Go all sharing their experiences online in the past year:

beejhay13: you are rite, arwen did see aragorn. the rx100 vacuum system has dander free hepa filter.

zhongjian: i can't agree more, the film was interesting. MP3 players @ cut-rates.

divina33: This a is very conversation good. I would like more to learn. Cat Spray Deterrent 100% effective.

jacquewaldos: nude photos of prince charles and camilla.

youbian123: I never thought that. It is not something Tolkein discuss. Caribbean cruises 1/2 off.

Waiter: I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. I'll ask again, what did you folks want to order for dinner?

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Anguirel

Nerwen, you are truly a noted scholar and thinker

Indeed, Ang dear you may have met your Antipodean match... (in the intellectual sense, quite enough of the other sort going on already... ).

It is particularly horrid when the little subcreated worlds are invaded - I neg repped a futile tirade against the one who landed in WF a while back. The one on the LOTR Score had ripped off something almost eloquent.

[LadyBrooke]

Apparently, the spam bots are preparing to fight a revolution...would somebody like to get rid of henryclinton15 before he gets his troops in line? It might be awhile though...apparently, the troops have to pay for airline flights with credit card rewards.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

Apparently, the spam bots are preparing to fight a revolution...would somebody like to get rid of henryclinton15 before he gets his troops in line? It might be awhile though...apparently, the troops have to pay for airline flights with credit card rewards.

I'd like to zap them as soon as I see those worthless links in their sig line. It can be frustrating watching them setting up their profiles and being helpless. Neg-repping the ones that are brave enough to post gives some satisfaction, though.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I'd like to zap them as soon as I see those worthless links in their sig line. It can be frustrating watching them setting up their profiles and being helpless.

Ditto. It's also frustrating having to wait until they post before you can do anything about it, even though you know they are spammers (a bit obvious, when they have all kinds of links in their siggies).

I don't really understand why they are doing all that. It's useles, and a waste of their time. I'm sure that they're sure they can profit from it, but hasn't it been proven worthless?

[LadyBrooke]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I'd like to zap them as soon as I see those worthless links in their sig line. It can be frustrating watching them setting up their profiles and being helpless. Neg-repping the ones that are brave enough to post gives some satisfaction, though.

Very frustrating - I wish there was a way to report them, same as spam posts can be reported. Especially since a lot of them seem to join late at night...and it's just me and the spammers, all alone.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I don't really understand why they are doing all that. It's useles, and a waste of their time. I'm sure that they're sure they can profit from it, but hasn't it been proven worthless?

There are some who advertise the same website or company again and again. I've Googled the ones who look like legitimate businesses and verified that the URLs matched what was in the spam links, then I've e-mailed the business complaining about the spam (though I haven't specifically named the Downs as a victim).
To date, I've received a response from one company. The respondent told me they'd had a problem with competitors spamming their website on forums to somehow drive down their rating on Google and other search engines. Not being all that knowledgeable about such things, I wasn't sure if I believed them or not.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

Very frustrating - I wish there was a way to report them, same as spam posts can be reported. Especially since a lot of them seem to join late at night...and it's just me and the spammers, all alone.

I wish so too. And it's not only you: very often I see 2 members on the Online list - me and a spammer whom I can't report because they haven't posted yet.

Zil: I'm also not so sure I believe them.

[satansaloser2005]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

To date, I've received a response from one company. The respondent told me they'd had a problem with competitors spamming their website on forums to somehow drive down their rating on Google and other search engines. Not being all that knowledgeable about such things, I wasn't sure if I believed them or not.

Except isn't it the exact opposite? The more pages you're on, the higher your results on Google, etc. Or at least that's how I understood it.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by satansaloser2005

Except isn't it the exact opposite? The more pages you're on, the higher your results on Google, etc. Or at least that's how I understood it.

You probably know more about it than I. At least they replied, though.

[satansaloser2005]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

You probably know more about it than I. At least they replied, though.

True. That's more than most companies will do. And I'm not sure if I'm right or not, but I'd heard that as an explanation for why spammers do stuff like this in the first place, so I don't know.

Also, look, we've got another one. Oh joy.