Hewman

A quick comment on spam

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When members see spam, rather than responding to the post giving it some perceived level of legitimacy as other members see replies to it, can you just hit the report button. The admins do a great job of getting rid of these threads quickly if you do report them.

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I'm sure they have had a million suggestions, but have they considered like a 24 hour waiting period after creating an account before being able to post?

Edited by fred67

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That sort of thing always sounds great, but how many legitimate members would appreciate it when signing up?

Really, the suggestion to report it is very true. If we spot spam before a report we deal with it, but there is nothing more frustrating to come across unreported spam with replies declaring it spam. Tap report and we staff can quickly deal with it.

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I understand the hesitation to have a waiting period, but I look at it this way: I've been a member for over five years... what's one day more or less? If someone really wanted to be a member, a short waiting period wouldn't deter them.

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simultaneously the "Lurkers" are already slow or hesitant to join and if they were to finally find a thread they wanted to comment on only to be told, hey thanks for joining wait 24hours and then you can comment. I imagine a decent number would then say "not worth the hassle, I'll just not register" and that's that. and really I doubt the 24hr delay would stop a spammer, if they are going website to website they probably will just wait the day and spam then with which ever sites they were going to do that day anyway.

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Quick question: is there a way to report from the mobile version of the site? I've encountered 2 or 3 spam topics and wanted to report but couldn't figure out how on my phone. I realize that junk gets deleted, which brings up another question: what about copycat posts that just disappear? On at least 2 ocassions I've written a thoughtful response to someone's topic only to have someone copy part of a statement word for word (not a standard quote, just copied) that could stand as a legitimate statement on its own. One time the copycat post was deleted after a few days - would that have been a type of spammer or just an admin or moderator weeding out plagiarism? Either way, I'm sure glad this site has these controls in place. And I apologize for going slightly off-topic but this seemed like the best time and place for it.

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Quick question: is there a way to report from the mobile version of the site?

I just checked and I don't think it's possible to report a post from the mobile version of the site. You can always switch to the full version on your mobile device and report the post from there.

I realize that junk gets deleted, which brings up another question: what about copycat posts that just disappear? On at least 2 ocassions I've written a thoughtful response to someone's topic only to have someone copy part of a statement word for word (not a standard quote, just copied) that could stand as a legitimate statement on its own. One time the copycat post was deleted after a few days - would that have been a type of spammer or just an admin or moderator weeding out plagiarism?

They're spammers. We delete the posts and remove the member when we encounter them or when they get reported.

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The copycat posts actually take a previous post in the thread and insert an invisible spam link at the end. It gets whatever link they're spamming out there but makes it really hard for moderators catch unless you're looking for it.

There are numerous things that our lovely admins do behind the scenes to keep most spambots from getting in that don't affect normal members much. The percentage of spam that gets through is actually pretty low.

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The spam advertisement threads that I've seen are always so hilariously garbled that I can't help but have a bit of fun with them before I report them.

I didn't know commenting on spam threads was viewed as legitimizing them. I can't quite say that I understand that logic, but I won't do it anymore. (I think I did so just last night)

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never noticed much spam

as a former Moderator, we had great success with adding an extra question to the signup procedure (eg, What is your favorite minifig?). the spam bots do not expect an extra question and cannot complete the signup procedure

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There is currently a topic on the General Lego Discussion forum describing various sex acts, including some illegal ones, plus a link to a site that would no doubt give you a myriad of viruses. This is the second such topic I've seen since I recently started browsing Eurobricks regularly again.

Why don't I see topics like this on, say GameFAQs for example? I don't browse many, but I've never seen this kind of topics on other message boards.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining. I am just curious as to why this site is seemingly targeted.

Edited by Sir Walter Maugham

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Strange, I've only seen maybe three or four spam topics in two years plus lurking here, but since April I've seen seven or eight. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places, oh well.

I think that the level of spam here is remarkably low for a site with 140k plus members and tens of thousands of viewers each day, props to the mods for keeping it that way. :thumbup:

I'll admit that I've commented on spam threads before, there was one that rambled about Bob Dillon, the Boston Red Sox, and Cantaloupe (with a link to some sort of steroid) that was so funny that I couldn't resist. :tongue: However, if some members have a problem with that, I won't do it anymore.

Just my thoughts.

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Strange, I've only seen maybe three or four spam topics in two years plus lurking here, but since April I've seen seven or eight. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places, oh well.

I think that the level of spam here is remarkably low for a site with 140k plus members and tens of thousands of viewers each day, props to the mods for keeping it that way. :thumbup:

The reason you do not see to many of them is because hey get deleted quickly. If I see any of them I just report them as spam.

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I see a lot of old topics and newer ones bumped so someone with around 10 posts says 'can you upload it to the LDD gallery on the site' or 'can you send me the instructions'. And people who didn't saw the date of start and think its a new topic! That is for me even more annoying than spam topics! Is that also spam.

never noticed much spam

as a former Moderator, we had great success with adding an extra question to the signup procedure (eg, What is your favorite minifig?). the spam bots do not expect an extra question and cannot complete the signup procedure

My question when signing up was: 'what is an AFOL?' I had to google it...

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My question when signing up was: 'what is an AFOL?' I had to google it...

Well I case you could of typed American Fan Of Lego or Average Fan Of Lego.

The moderators on EB do great job on dealing with spam,I just wish they could deal with it on the supermarket shelf's too. :laugh:

Edited by Alasdair Ryan

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I see a lot of old topics and newer ones bumped so someone with around 10 posts says 'can you upload it to the LDD gallery on the site' or 'can you send me the instructions'. And people who didn't saw the date of start and think its a new topic! That is for me even more annoying than spam topics! Is that also spam.

My question when signing up was: 'what is an AFOL?' I had to google it...

That is covered in the Site Guidelines under posting when it is ok to resurrect an old topic. I don't think most user read them before agreeing to them. Perhaps the membership application questions should be based on the SIte Guidelines like:

What is the minimum age to join Eurobricks?

What is EB's policy on promoting your Ideas and YouTube channels?

What is the maximum picture size allowed?

When is it ok to quote pictures?

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Why don't I see topics like this on, say GameFAQs for example? I don't browse many, but I've never seen this kind of topics on other message boards.

Don't misunderstand, I'm not complaining. I am just curious as to why this site is seemingly targeted.

I don't think we're necessarily more targeted than other sites.

I'd imagine GameFAQs has a paid moderating team that can devote more time than we as volunteers can devote. No one on EB staff is paid for helping out here. We all have other jobs and full lives off the site as well.

Another difference is that GameFAQs probably has a website development team (either in house or a professional company) that built their forums for their needs and were able to put in custom solutions for preventing spammers. Our admins do a very good job tweaking things here but they are limited by what the forum software can do.

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Report it and we can delete it. Sometimes it is one very swift solo spammer, other times it is a number of accounts, but reports help us deal quickly with the problem.

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I'm sure they have had a million suggestions, but have they considered like a 24 hour waiting period after creating an account before being able to post?

What if staff members have to approve the first post of a new member?

There is currently a topic on the General Lego Discussion forum describing various sex acts, including some illegal ones, plus a link to a site that would no doubt give you a myriad of viruses. This is the second such topic I've seen since I recently started browsing Eurobricks regularly again.

The one of the Voodoo Doctor offering voodoo spells was hilarious :laugh:

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Staff are volunteers. We don't have time to approve a members first post within a timescale that a new member would appreciate. Really, report any spam you see and we 'll keep right on it.

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Regarding spam, it seems EB member obsidianheart is having some troubles with that:

His/her status says:

The error report I am receiving indicates my account has been locked due to suspicions of spam, which I have been reporting a lot of recently. This is now my only means of communication. Please unlock my account!

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Regarding spam, it seems EB member obsidianheart is having some troubles with that:

Hey, I'm out of limbo now.

Thanks for bringing it to their attention though! That was really cool of you.

Also, I'm a dude.

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Hey, I'm out of limbo now.

Thanks for bringing it to their attention though! That was really cool of you.

Also, I'm a dude.

Sure!

Good to see you're back

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