More spam

[RAZKY]

It depends. When it's an entire page of Chinese language spam, then seeing the notification and seeing the actual spam threads happen pretty much at the same time. Personally, when I check the forum, my eyes go straight to the little red notification alert and so I see that first. And most times, I'll see that notification first before I see the spam thread, which might have moved down the page a ways, or even off the first page of threads with new content. I also then check notifications on the moderators' queue, which alerts us to posts or new members that might be spam. Nine times out of ten, they are and they get deleted before anyone else ever sees them.

In short, yes, the notifications are still useful to us.

Good explanation - thanks for taking the time.

 

[Ozzie_Traveller]

G'day all

Although new to this group, I had been a Mod on the recently defunct UK Photo Forum, and I used my "other side of the world" location to kill off similar spam messages from time to time

The UK site did not get much spam but it did arrive

For your purposes, check Sydney / east coast of Australia to your US-Canada local times and compare notes. I usually do my initial daily login between 0600 & 0700 Sydney time, and this might suit your members as well

Phil

 

[480sparky]

Perhaps we need to hand out some ban hammers.

 

[RAZKY]

Sure would be great if we had someone running the show who actually cared about this issue!

 

[Jeff15]

It's getting really bad again...

 

[Photo Lady]

each and every morning...filled with spam

 

[Scott Whaley]

I woke up this morning in the US to a whole page of spam. Now, it's gone.

 

[RAZKY]

I woke up this morning in the US to a whole page of spam. Now, it's gone.

Usually a staff member on the east coast will clear it off when they get up in the morning. Its pretty much a daily irritation.

 

[limr]

I woke up this morning in the US to a whole page of spam. Now, it's gone.

Yup, that's how it works. The Chinese spam tends to hit in the middle of the night in the US and whichever moderators wake up first delete it. We're trying to work on it. There's nothing we can do except delete it when we see it or when someone reports it, but we're trying to get the techs for the site to check if there are adjustments that can be made to our spam filters to catch it before it posts.

One of the problems is that the bots are likely using a VPN or something because IPs almost never match, so the new ones don't get blocked. There are some patterns to the usernames that might be useful, but again, there's not much we can do except react and try to get the attention of the techs.

 

[Jeff15]

Mods on both sides of the pond would be a great help...

 

[limr]

Mods on both sides of the pond would be a great help...

Yes, so you've mentioned.

 

[RAZKY]

Yup, that's how it works. The Chinese spam tends to hit in the middle of the night in the US and whichever moderators wake up first delete it. We're trying to work on it. There's nothing we can do except delete it when we see it or when someone reports it, but we're trying to get the techs for the site to check if there are adjustments that can be made to our spam filters to catch it before it posts.

One of the problems is that the bots are likely using a VPN or something because IPs almost never match, so the new ones don't get blocked. There are some patterns to the usernames that might be useful, but again, there's not much we can do except react and try to get the attention of the techs.

I'm curious - what does this spam do besides irritate? This is the only place I've ever seen anything like it, but I only belong to one other social media forum. Do other sites have better filters, or more moderators online all the time, or does someone have it in for the Photo Forum? Looks like you folks are doing what you can, and I'll shut up about it now!

 

[480sparky]

The funny part is... there are no links in all that crap. It's just gibberish about higher education.

 

[limr]

I'm curious - what does this spam do besides irritate? This is the only place I've ever seen anything like it, but I only belong to one other social media forum. Do other sites have better filters, or more moderators online all the time, or does someone have it in for the Photo Forum? Looks like you folks are doing what you can, and I'll shut up about it now!

Good question. I'm not regular enough on other forums except for Filmwasters, so I don't know about spam on other forums. Filmwasters uses different software and I've never seen spam like this. Another moderator says she is on another forum like TPF but it doesn't get spam like we do. I'm not really sure how it looks on the back end to see how different sites are set up even with the same software.

The moderators are frustrated by it all, too, and we feel your pain. We're talking about what we can do.

The funny part is... there are no links in all that crap. It's just gibberish about higher education.

For the most part no, there are no links, but apparently there are What's App handles and they're all advertising some service to get easy degrees or acceptance or something like that. Like degree mills, I think.

 

[Space Face]

I run a Forum here in the UK and have the membership application settings set so Admin have to approve the application before anyone can post. The human touch works I've never had a single Spam post.

Different hosts and sofware from this place tho but it can be done. Depends if you have sufficient Admin/Mods able or willing to carry out the necessary I suppose.