What's with the sudden influx of spam accounts?

[DarloRich]

Genuine question - how do I spot spam, or am I too unworldly to recognise it?

if it is an advert offering you the chance to increase your length, girth or stamina or that you have won money form Nigeria it is spam

 

[AlterEgo]

if it is an advert offering you the chance to increase your length or that you have won money form Nigeria it is spam

All the ones I've seen offer to increase my girth - would this be legit?

Please help as I have started the treatment.

 

[DarloRich]

All the ones I've seen offer to increase my girth - would this be legit?

Please help as I have started the treatment.

Give it a try - what can possibly go wrong?

Fixed the above.

 

[DaleCooper]

As René Descartes said:

"I link therefore I'm spam"

 

[Groningen]

I have noticed nothing and still can be found often on this forum.

 

[Busaholic]

if it is an advert offering you the chance to increase your length, girth or stamina or that you have won money form Nigeria it is spam

Damn - I had my flight booked to Nigeria to pick up the initial tranche too, but my increased girth meant I had to book adjoining seats. The increased length would also impact on the person sitting in front of me, but they might take it in their stride.

 

[edwin_m]

My idea to reopen the branch line between Little Snoring and Upper Nowhere is a surefire money spinner and will repay everyone's investment several times over. Just email your bank account details to spam[at]spambot.ru and we'll do the rest.

 

[DaleCooper]

We're suffering a spamstorm today.

 

[A Challenge]

We're suffering a spamstorm today.

I noticed one yesterday, none today though.

 

[DaleCooper]

I noticed one yesterday, none today though.

I saw five or six this afternoon but they have been deleted.

 

[Harbornite]

Genuine question - how do I spot spam, or am I too unworldly to recognise it?

Some spam posts are easy to spot- they'll consist of jumbled up, copied and pasted characters.

 

[D365]

Some spam posts are easy to spot- they'll consist of jumbled up, copied and pasted characters.

There's a very ugly one right now in fact.

 

[theblackwatch]

Most of you don't see half of them - around 90% get moderated (so our spam filter is pretty good) but some slip through.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Most of you don't see half of them - around 90% get moderated (so our spam filter is pretty good) but some slip through.

Are we running Askimet?

 

[DarloRich]

if you see them just report them. I have reported all the spams I have seen recently. The admins take them down asap.

 

[D365]

Are we running Askimet?

Isn't that just for wordpress sites?

And yes I always report. Never actually reply to the threads.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Isn't that just for wordpress sites?

And yes I always report. Never actually reply to the threads.

There's a Askimet plugin for vBulletin but I have no idea if Askimet support version 3.8 of vBulletin as version 3.8 is very old now, not sure without looking if vBulletin might be upto version 5.x

 

[BlueFox]

I've recently had a big increase in spammers registering on a forum I run. Every one of them has been flagged as a spammer, and was unable to post.

I use a forum plugin that has access to a database of IP and email addresses used by spammers, so it checks every new registration.

The version for vBulletin is here: https://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=248470

 

[IanXC]

As we've said, we have a variety of anti-spam measures in place, which are successful in combating the overwhelming majority of spam posts submitted to the forum.

These measures include exactly the kinds of solutions posters have mentioned, and we do of course keep these tactics under review.

 

[GB]

As we've said, we have a variety of anti-spam measures in place, which are successful in combating the overwhelming majority of spam posts submitted to the forum.

These measures include exactly the kinds of solutions posters have mentioned, and we do of course keep these tactics under review.

I don't think anyone is debating that the forum has means of mitigating spam and does a good job combating it. Just surprising that such an amount has slipped through all of a sudden.

 

[DaleCooper]

I don't think anyone is debating that the forum has means of mitigating spam and does a good job combating it. Just surprising that such an amount has slipped through all of a sudden.

As we don't know how many spam attempts fail it's not possible to say whether the proportion getting through is greater or smaller than usual. If we are vigilant (and nobody clicks on the links) the small amount of spam that gets through doesn't need to be a big problem. In my experience the spam that does get through is spotted, reported and deleted very quickly.

 

[Geezertronic]

Maybe that could be because the spammers have currently found ways to circumvent anti-spam systems which in turn need updating. Not a lot that the railforums mods can do about that beyond what they usually do

 

[DaleCooper]

I've just seen nine in quick succession, they were popping up as fast as I could report them.

 

[AlterEgo]

I've just seen nine in quick succession, they were popping up as fast as I could report them.

Whack-a-troll?

 

[D365]

Haven't had the chance to report it this morning, but I've spotted several more 'spams'...

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Haven't had the chance to report it this morning, but I've spotted several more 'spams'...

I have reported them in the early hours of this morning. The Cyrillic script is usual something that stands out when viewing an index page of threads

 

[class387]

I've reported four today. Two of the usual Cyrillic nonsense and also another two in English with much worse content that we really shouldn't see.

 

[yorkie]

Best thing to do is simply click the report button (

) and submit a report as spam and nothing more than that (definitely don't reply to them). If the same account posts multiple times, you only need report one of their posts (no need to report any others)

Haven't had the chance to report it this morning, but I've spotted several more 'spams'...

It should be just as quick to click the report button as it is to post on this thread... if not quicker

 

[D365]

It should be just as quick to click the report button as it is to post on this thread... if not quicker

As above, there were at least four different posts from four different new users. Sorry

 

[alxndr]

Is making the report button more recognisable a possibility? I found it eventually to report the ones I've seen, but took a while to find it the first time!