To All CD ADMINS's

[Tom Line]

1. Why they do it.

Search results. Search engines score search results. If you can place multiple links to your site on a well-scored site like Chief Delphi, that raises the score of your own website. That's why a lot of these posts are just dozens of links to the same site. Repeat this thousands or tens of thousands of times and you can boost your site and get the hits you want. Usually to download malware of some sort.

2. Should we report it?

Yes. Every time. Because there is a que of reported items that let mods click through quickly and remove each one. Otherwise they have to guess or stumble across the posts themselves.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

1. Why they do it.
Search results. Search engines score search results. If you can place multiple links to your site on a well-scored site like Chief Delphi, that raises the score of your own website. That's why a lot of these posts are just dozens of links to the same site. Repeat this thousands or tens of thousands of times and you can boost your site and get the hits you want. Usually to download malware of some sort.

Fortunately this isn't the case anymore. In fact, Google punishes sites that are linked to like this now.

[cbale2000]

IMO, the simple thing to do would be to just require moderator approval of the first 3-5 posts of any new member like many other forums do. It would mean people wouldn't have to report spambots anymore and their posts would never show up to the general public.

[joelg236]

9 / 25 are spam. Are moderators just too busy right now (I'm sure there'd be more volunteers if that's the case)? I've never seen Delphi like this before. I'm curious what has changed (if something has).

I know that Brandon has enabled some spam blocking, but clearly it isn't working well enough for a clean experience.

[Anupam Goli]

The last two nights were completely awful in terms of spam posts. I'm used to seeing a bit more in the offseason, since during the season there are so many new topics made it crowds out the spam users posting, but the screenshot joel posted just shows how ridiculous the spam attack last night was. I feel like the spammers are starting to hit harder. It really is time for an upgrade to the spam prevention system.

[yash101]

This site has a database of spammers. They also have some plugins, that can guard against spam! It is useful to block users from signing up, preventing spam users, in the first place!
http://stopforumspam.com/contributions

[Cory]

Originally Posted by joelg236

9 / 25 are spam. Are moderators just too busy right now (I'm sure there'd be more volunteers if that's the case)? I've never seen Delphi like this before. I'm curious what has changed (if something has).

I know that Brandon has enabled some spam blocking, but clearly it isn't working well enough for a clean experience.

We're two revs behind on vBulletin. I'm no webmaster but I frequent some other vBulletin based sites with zero spam and I'm pretty sure they're version 4/5.

[joelg236]

Originally Posted by Cory

We're two revs behind on vBulletin. I'm no webmaster but I frequent some other vBulletin based sites with zero spam and I'm pretty sure they're version 4/5.

I'm assuming there are known "exploits" to get around this version's spam filters then?

[JohnBoucher]

Keep reporting the spam. The admins will delete it as soon as they can.

I would hate to see controls put on new users. Anyone should be able to post links and ask questions. Anyone that is smart enough read CD is smart enough to ignore the spam.

There is an upgrade in the works. We can deal with the spam until then.

[magnets]

What if, when 10 users who all had >100 posts marked something as spam, it would automatically disappear from chief delphi. Then, when a moderator would check for spam, they could choose to permanently delete these posts, or instead they could mark them as not spam, and they would return to normal.

[Brandon Martus]

I'll be installing a quick anti-spam mod today or tomorrow to try & keep spam under control until I can upgrade the forums. CD-Media is the last thing I need to account for before I can upgrade vBulletin. Bear with me.

[JohnBoucher]

Sweet!

[DonRotolo]

Just put all users with 3 posts or less into a special group, who cannot add hyperlinks to their posts or signatures. Kinda defeats the spammer's goals.

[Brandon Martus]

It should be doing that already. Users should have to be registered for 60 days and have 3 posts before they're able to post anything with a link (post or signature). Apparently that's broke -- I'll have to look into it.

Edit: Apparently that link permission is only for signatures. I'm going to test the anti-spam module tonight or tomorrow night; we'll see if that takes care of a majority of the problem.

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

IMO, the simple thing to do would be to just require moderator approval of the first 3-5 posts of any new member like many other forums do. It would mean people wouldn't have to report spambots anymore and their posts would never show up to the general public.

I really dislike this idea. If a person new to FIRST has a question this is the easiest place to go to get it answered quickly and having to await approval for a post to go up creates a barrier to entry (whether it be 30 seconds that it takes for approval or 2 hours) If I see "Your post is awaiting approval from an administrator" after I make an account on that site I get pretty annoyed.