Spam Bomb?

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Seems like the spam filter got shut off, or did someone drop a spam bomb on the site? This is the 3rd forum this week to get hit by similar stuff. 1 performance truck forum, and 1 boating forum.

Careful what you open!

[SWharton]

We seem to get an excessive amount compared to other forums I am on.

 

Edit: Worst I have ever seen it...............................

[LindaH]

They're gone now.

[theeyres]

I can only recall one or two spam bombs on this site in the years I've been on it. It's one of the best sites. So don't know how they get through to some computers and not others.

[Kirk W]

Now you know what the four of us with "Weekend Moderator" under our avatars actually do.

[skp51443]

We see lots (dozens) of new forum members every day, if you use the view new members function you can see them. Many have rv types of we, df, xc, ra and other easy to type with your left hand brands as well as interests like skating or train spotting with strange locations and e-mail addresses from free sites you've never heard of. The forum bans a lot of them automatically, the weekend moderators ban ones that post spams but a lot of them just linger never returning to do anything past creating the profile.

 

The only time the spams are really aggravating is when you are following to a topic, the e-mail about the new posts gets sent right away and even if the post is deleted a couple minutes later the e-mails are still out there waiting for you.

 

Once the profile is in place and validated they can post messages and that is where the spam posts appear, if you hit the report link on one it will be sent to the attention of the admins and may be deleted before the weekend folks see it. The admins have some blocking in place to protect the PM system from spam and that hasn't been abused since then.

[RV_]

Well that explains that. I don't follow topics ever. I just check the forums I frequent for anyone needing help and check or post information I found new or interesting, and move on. I don't check all the forums just scan the main list for interesting topics occasionally. Now I know what folks are talking about when they talk spam. I don't want any website to flag me when I am not there. That's why I don't get spam. I always wondered what folks were talking about and how they got spam. I don't get any spam but the very rare one maybe once a month on any of my systems, and am cutting down on my subscriptions to the ones that have nothing tangible to offer anymore. I am in the process of cutting back and getting rid of my editorial newsletters and sticking to two news sources, five daily technology and computer newsletters, and only one of the many tech magazines I used to subscribe to. My inbox went from a hundred a day with no spam I did not ask for, to now a manageable 30 or so. And I am getting those down to at most 20. Good job weekend mods!

[SWharton]

I do report spam when I find it on the forum and appreciate the report link.

 

I also feel that this forum gets an inordinate amount of spam. I participte in 3 other forums where all you do is sign in as a new user and you can post messages. I rarely see spam on those forums as compared to Escapees. I don't know what is done differently but there must be something, it seems to me I see spam on a daily bsis on the Escapees site.

[skp51443]

From what I've seen the IP Board software is not great at stopping spammers, in the last 24 hours there were 21 new members, 7 were banned by the forum software, 6 were caught by the weekend moderators or other admins for spam posts or spam profiles. Check new content, members and last 24 hours or last week to see what I'm talking about here. Banned are by the forum software, Posting Disabled are manual removals.

 

if you look at the list of new members you see that the remaining ones break down into RVers and likely spammers, 4 spammers like the one below and only 4 RVers. We do not have permission to zap the iffy looking profiles until they come back and post something spammy, probably a good thing as most never return anyway and a few iffy ones turn out to be RVers that put nonsense in their profiles.

 

Likely spammer: http://www.rvnetwork.com/index.php?showuser=50711

 

 

 

• Location
  punjab
• Interests
  astrologer

Optional Fields

• SKP#
  ast
• Lifetime Member
  Yes
• RV Type
  swa

 

 

I remember my old swa motorhome, got it from Motorhomes-R-Us in Punjab... Nope!

[teacher's pet]

They're baaaaaccccccckkkkkkk!

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

They're baaaaaccccccckkkkkkk!

What..... you don't want any chinese black voodoo magic?

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

The problem is reporting them and getting "Message Ignored you sent too quick".

[skp51443]

There is a 30 some second delay between reports, a bit of an aggravation but it keeps a spammer from scanning for the report links and sending a million reports to clog the system.

 

Our fuzzy little buddy got off about a dozen voodoo spams and it looks like Kirk was the early bird and got them. He looks to be from "all city" with an interest in astrology and an escapeeclub brand RV.

[Ronbo]

Hit again. Twice today

[skp51443]

It looks like there were several spam posters that loaded us up with between 20 and 50 spams each. I sent Travis an e-mail asking him to consult with James (the forum guru) to see if there is anything that can be done.

 

All are now blocked from posting and their spew hidden. If more show up report them, well at least one per spammer and add a note to the report that there are a large number of spams from them. We should see that when blocking the user but it is just one number in a list of others and we can miss it if we are sloppy.

[Kirk W]

I just took down 2 more "members" and a total of 25 more spam posts about 6:30 am.

 

What absolutely amazes me is the number of "views" that the trash posts get. I suppose that explains the reason that they keep coming. Those which I took down had all been up less than 1 hour, yet the fewest views any had was 3 with most having been looked at 5 to 8 times and one of them had 16! The subject in all of them made it obvious that it was trash, so why do people even look at them?

[Barbaraok]

I remember my old swa motorhome, got it from Motorhomes-R-Us in Punjab... Nope!

 

Was that the 2 or 3 donkey version?

 

Barb

[TCW]

...The subject in all of them made it obvious that it was trash, so why do people even look at them? ...

I notice that there are a number of folks that post that they have reported these type of posts. Can you report them without viewing them? You have to view it to report it, post that you reported it or read the post that says it has been reported, correct?

[lasttruck]

I just took down 2 more "members" and a total of 25 more spam posts about 6:30 am.

 

What absolutely amazes me is the number of "views" that the trash posts get. I suppose that explains the reason that they keep coming. Those which I took down had all been up less than 1 hour, yet the fewest views any had was 3 with most having been looked at 5 to 8 times and one of them had 16! The subject in all of them made it obvious that it was trash, so why do people even look at them?

Don't you have to view them to report them?

[Rif]

A question for the Weekend Moderators. Is there any real benefit or reason to report obvious spam during the first couple hours it is posted? After all, the reports go to the the Admins who are not on the Forum all that much. It would seem that by the time the Admins look at the post, one of the Weekend Moderators will already have taken it down. I can see reporting a spam if it has been up for a few hours, but otherwise it seems like a waste of time and perhaps even counter productive if the "reporter" also posts a "Reported" post. All that does is move the spam back to the top of the list.

[LindaH]

A question for the Weekend Moderators. Is there any real benefit or reason to report obvious spam during the first couple hours it is posted?

 

Not really. As you say, a reported posts goes to the administrators, not the weekend moderators. By the time an administrator checks the reported posts, a weekend moderators has probably already banned the spam poster and hidden the post.

[lasttruck]

 

Not really. As you say, a reported posts goes to the administrators, not the weekend moderators. By the time an administrator checks the reported posts, a weekend moderators has probably already banned the spam poster and hidden the post.

That's good to know.

 

Thanks!

[Pat & Pete]

This site is getting hit yet again this morning .

[Kirk W]

 

Not really. As you say, a reported posts goes to the administrators, not the weekend moderators. By the time an administrator checks the reported posts, a weekend moderators has probably already banned the spam poster and hidden the post.

First, you do have to view the post to make the "Report" but when you see a garbage subject, if there are already two or three views then it has probably been reported. It is also true what LindaH has said, but Travis Carr is frequently one who comes on in the very early morning, about 1 am and he may well be responding to those reports. They also insure that someone on the IT staff is aware of the heavy load of spam and can then verify and delete it as we only hide them. I'm not sure that it actually helps anything to use the

"report" on spam, but it also harms nothing.

[skp51443]

Reporting is good for two reasons, first it lets the admins know that the spam is happening and second there is someone that responds to the spam report e-mails by hiding the spam. Not on any regular basis but if they are on-line the spam gets zapped within a couple minutes.

 

The spammers don't really care about the posts being viewed here by our users, they are putting them here so the search engines that visit every few minutes pick up their spew and give their main site a higher ranking in the search results. That is why so many don't make any sense, to a human anyway, since they are stuffed with random words to get by any spam filters and key words the spammer wants the search engines to pick up on.

 

So please report spams, even if it is just one per spammer it is enough to alert the admins to the problem and give the spam zapper at HQ a heads up if they are on line.