Spam threads gone wild

[SSE 4 2SS]

Originally Posted by mlee

We need an Administrator that will talk to us

Yup…

[Joshinator99]

Originally Posted by arpad_m

Josh, are there any post filters or automatically applied rules in this forum engine? These spam posts are so easy to identify from their metaproperties, all one needs to do is define a few filters and they'd be gone, never to return.

Well, at least until AIs can make actual posts that look like genuine contributions, but we could cross that bridge when we get there.

The version forum engine we’re using looks completely different than the Camaro6 one. I suspect this boards version is super out of date. Sorry I’m not more help.

Originally Posted by SSE 4 2SS

The difference being you are an admin… We are but lowly moderators…. Owner seems a bit eccentric and apparently doesn’t trust us to have IP ban capabilities… I’ve asked…

Problem right now is only three of us are even logging into the boards… and we spend a huge amount of time chasing these prick spammer bots…, and sensitive people that get panties in a wad over a simple warning…

If the three of us decided not to log in, the board would either crash from over saturation with spammers, or it would become unusable due to spam posts… Hell the paid adverts are bad enough….

I would love to come in and read and interact with friends, offer my limited knowledge, but with hundreds of spam posts a day, from dozens of bots…. Who has time???

Negative, my friend. I was a moderator for several years before becoming administrator and as moderator you have the same spam tools as well. So as mentioned above I really think it’s just the board software being so out of date. Which is surprising, since we have paying supporting vendors here and with the paid ads that’s usually enough money to keep the software up to date….

Thanks again to you, Mike, and Radz28 for doing your best. If you guys are ever in New England , drinks are on me (you too Arpad!).

[arpad_m]

If you want to use IP bans against bots and spammers, you'd have to ban all VPNs, too, not sure if that's realistic.

Post pre-commit filters that work somewhat similarly to ad blockers, except they'd execute just prior to posting, would be a million times more efficient, but after a quick glance at the current version of this forum software (vBulletin 6), it doesn't look like such functionality is supported even in the latest release.


Thanks for the offer, Josh , when I visit Ted's shop again in Waterbury, I can hop on over to you and sip some of the good stuff after finally checking out your amazing garage.

[SSE 4 2SS]

Originally Posted by Joshinator99

The version forum engine we’re using looks completely different than the Camaro6 one. I suspect this boards version is super out of date. Sorry I’m not more help.



Negative, my friend. I was a moderator for several years before becoming administrator and as moderator you have the same spam tools as well. So as mentioned above I really think it’s just the board software being so out of date. Which is surprising, since we have paying supporting vendors here and with the paid ads that’s usually enough money to keep the software up to date….

Thanks again to you, Mike, and Radz28 for doing your best. If you guys are ever in New England , drinks are on me (you too Arpad!).

Since day one of me being a mod here, IP banning was something we had to pass onto the Admin to take care of… I’ve no issue with that, if he was here to do so… When he does log in, he ignores us… Again, I think it’s a control/ trust issue…

I’m guessing when he logs in and actually reads a few items I’ll be booted… I wish I could save my entire build thread as is, but I’m trying to gather the photos at this point… I could do it as a word document but that would take weeks and weeks…. I’ve got the computer to handle it, I just wish I could select all, and export to Word… Any Ideas?/?

[FlukeSS]

Originally Posted by Joshinator99

I still can’t believe you guys cannot IP-ban a spammer. I’m an admin on another board and it’s a miracle cure for this kind of nonsense.

They can domain ban them though, and they CAN do it with an IP.

Regardless if they are using a VPN

You ban the whole VPN domain range which would be X.Y.Y.Y Where X is the only number you need.

Or you add country blocks to the .htaccess denial for the website.

[arpad_m]

Originally Posted by FlukeSS

They can domain ban them though, and they CAN do it with an IP.

Regardless if they are using a VPN

You ban the whole VPN domain range which would be X.Y.Y.Y Where X is the only number you need.

Or you add country blocks to the .htaccess denial for the website.

Those are crude techniques, why would you want to exclude entire countries or all VPN users? IMO the best approach is if anyone/anything wants to post such shit, we detect their shit, refuse to post and don't even tell them what we did (via the API).

[mlee]

Just banned over 150 that had their initial thread auto set to moderation yet keep making new threads.

[mlee]

Just banned over 150 of these. Those that show 37 and 57 posts etc will still have a lot out there but at least those numbers won't grow anymore because the account is now banned instead of just a thread being moderated so users can't see it.

[bigd1276]

I am rooting for you guys but I think you’re outgunned.

[Aqua Blue RS/SS]

The moment if/when you ever get approval for more mods I’m locked cocked and ready to rock, like I’ve talked about with one particular moderator in this thread before.

[dmcmahan60]

Thanks mlee for doing what you can.

[mlee]

Originally Posted by bigd1276

I am rooting for you guys but I think you’re outgunned.

Without an admin we definitely are with the powers we have.

Originally Posted by dmcmahan60

Thanks mlee for doing what you can.

I gave up a couple months ago.

If it wasn't for helping out SSE and RADZ I wouldn't even be doing this.

Well over a decade of dedication to this forum and this is how it goes. Just pisses me off.

[jfkheat]

Originally Posted by mlee

Without an admin we definitely are with the powers we have.

I gave up a couple months ago.

If it wasn't for helping out SSE and RADZ I wouldn't even be doing this.

Well over a decade of dedication to this forum and this is how it goes. Just pisses me off.

I can understand this. It's real hard to care when the owner/admin doesn't care about the forum. Between all the spam and ads, I'm surprised the forum has as much activity as it does.

[90503]

If new software is available that would stop all this nonsense, I would hope the admin would put it in place.

If it compromises old posts and old threads, so be it. I'm not sentimental about any bs of mine from years ago. To hell with it. Get this site cleaned up and end this spam.

Ending the aggravation of these spammers is well worth any changes to the site.

My $.02.