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I have implemented a manual system for approving accounts – so I have to LOOK at each "application", and I am using a reference website to try to stop the spammers for getting on here in the first place. Rather time consuming, to say the least, but worth it if it keeps the riff-raff off here.
If the website reference tool yields no results, I approve them – but that means that the occasional spammer might get through – so if you see something, please continue to alert me by email and I’ll take care of it.
I pruned about 200 "users" (spammers) today that have histories of spamming elsehwere. There’s still 700+ registered users here and I’m sure a lot of them don’t need to be on here, so I’ll prune some more when I get the time (if I don’t get carpal tunnel first LOL!)
At least with the new system I’ll delete/block most of them before they get here – I should have done that back in the beginning because it’s more work now (hindsight LOL!)
Hopefully that will help keep this place safe and clean.
Jenn
I purged a bunch more tonight at work since it was quiet. I’m going through them alphabetically – I just started the "Ds"… it’s astonishing how many there are…
We had about 950 members – in all reality there may be 200 or so when I’m done, based on how many I am deleting from the spam list. There’s a website that helps people stop forum spam, and I’m cross-referencing every user’s email with it – if they show up there, they are GONE. I’m starting to spot patterns too – that helps.
I got 18 new requests for accounts overnight (they need to be approved first now), and none of them was a legit user.
Things that make you shake your head… at least doing it this way now, nips the problem in the bud – they can’t post til I grant access – my delete button may be worn out before this is all done.
Jenn
about these type of people who spend their time just annoying others. Sorry you have to deal with all this but thank you for all your hard work.
I think most of them are spambots… not actual people trying to register.
Half-dozen more this morning, deleted before they can gain access.
I’ll try to purge more junk today.
Jenn
Jenn,
Thank you for all you do! I never realized how much work went into keeping the site spam free as well as other problems!
Thanks Again!
is a spammer and exactly what is spam on a website. I thought it meant advertisements, but I don’t think I’m right.
Is that only a handful of spammers have actually posted. I am not sure how it works, spambots "register" and I’m guessing that later on either another spambot or a person, uses the account to post spam on the board.
In hindsight I should have set it up to manually check each registration in the first place. Would have saved myself a lot of work – because it’s a bit time consuming to go back into each account and check it after the fact. Once we set up the forums to accept registrations, it was all automatic – I didn’t have to do anything, anyone who applied got access.
Now when somebody registers, before they can post, I get an email notification that someone has registered, and I have to manually approve or delete them. That gives me a chance to check them out first and decide whether to approve or deny them.
I’m using a website called stopforumspam.com and I can check user ID, email address and IP address – if any given user has been reported to that site (their info comes up when I search them), I delete them. Apparently it’s a huge problem.
I’m getting a few on my business website too, but nowhere near as many as here. Mostly ads for cheap Viagra or whatnot – same sorts of things that my email spam filter picks up.
I’m sure I deleted about 200 accounts yesterday. Sometimes one can tell from the email address they register with – lots from Russia or other Eastern European countries, some for "auto loans", some from a lesbian pictures website… all kinds of weird stuff. I can add filters to screen out certain email domains etc., but a surprising amount come from gmail addresses – I can’t really ban all gmail users – I use gmail myself.
Thankfully they all haven’t started posting – that would be a huge mess… so I’m going to clean out the "members" as best I can, and prevent new ones from signing up.
Seems pointless – how many people would actually buy stuff from somebody that was spamming them? I know I wouldn’t…
Some of the links they post contain malware and viruses, spyware and all that other fun stuff – so never click a link in a spam post or email.
Jenn
At the site’s status report – it reports on every time there’s an activity – somebody posts, somebody logs in etc. It seems like some of the deleted accounts are still trying to log in every 30 minutes or so – that *has* to be automatic. I’ve had half a dozen "new applications" this morning… and I accidentally deleted one legit account (My apologies, Bevken86!) but she’s back up and registered again.
It’s been a real eye-opener that’s for sure – never had these issues on the old main board (closed membership) and the free forum – probably had some sort of blocking software on it.
Hopefully I haven’t canned any other legit member… if I did by mistake I hope they follow the instructions in the "deleted" email and contact me to get back on.
Jenn
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