Too much damn SPAM on appleinsider now...new mac site anyone?
THAT'S IT!
I've just about had it with the non-stop spam in the forums here. Does anyone know of a good mac site where we can all hang out at and talk about future apple products?
Macrumors isn't my first choice because their forum sections does not have a good section where we can readily talk about future hardware. You either have to talk existing products and thats it. Even their "rumors" section is only for the admin to post an article.
Does anyone know where we can go now?
I've just about had it with the non-stop spam in the forums here. Does anyone know of a good mac site where we can all hang out at and talk about future apple products?
Macrumors isn't my first choice because their forum sections does not have a good section where we can readily talk about future hardware. You either have to talk existing products and thats it. Even their "rumors" section is only for the admin to post an article.
Does anyone know where we can go now?
Comments
The irony of the irony you pointed out is that you are replying to a "spam" thread...spamming the forum even more.
lol
The irony of the irony you pointed out is that you are replying to a "spam" thread...spamming the forum even more.
lol
I will ban myself then for an undisclosed amount of time but before I go
iPhone 3g .....245.22
iphone 3gs ...599.11
iPod Touch 16GB ...$388.88
Moron spammers
I will ban myself then for an undisclosed amount of time but before I go
iPhone 3g .....245.22
iphone 3gs ...599.11
iPod Touch 16GB ...$388.88
Moron spammers
lol!
What would be really ironic is if one of the admins comes here to chastise me for this thread and erases it. In fact, I will cheer for it because after they get through with me, since their here, maybe they would clean up the real spam while they're at it.
There is a list of 100 gobbledegook links...
...each link then goes to its own page......
.... which then lists another 100 or so gobbledegook phrases...
.... That aren't even links!
There's no porn, or viagra, or shoes, or dvd rippers... nothing!
What's the point?
What's the point?
Presumably any Windows user unfortunate enough to click on one of those links gets a little present installed on their PC.
The spammer posts in all the sections.
There is a list of 100 gobbledegook links...
...each link then goes to its own page......
.... which then lists another 100 or so gobbledegook phrases...
.... That aren't even links!
There's no porn, or viagra, or shoes, or dvd rippers... nothing!
What's the point?
Presumably any Windows user unfortunate enough to click on one of those links gets a little present installed on their PC.
Ewwwwww.
Piot, if I were you I would activate the self destruct mechanism on your pc.....before it launches a bot attack on some country or something.
Wouldn't you know it....
Suddenly I find my thread moved to this section and most of the spam has mysteriously disappeared.....for now anyways.
Hopefully now the admins will pay more attention to their own site.............NOT!
Haha!
Wouldn't you know it....
Suddenly I find my thread moved to this section and most of the spam has mysteriously disappeared.....for now anyways.
Hopefully now the admins will pay more attention to their own site.............NOT!
I moved the thread and removed the spam (as I do every day) when I'm not working. We all have day jobs/lives, it's not as if people moaning gets the job done faster. Your accomplishment today was simply that there was one more thread to deal with.
As I said before, we get that it's frustrating having to wade through spam posts, it's frustrating having to remove them too but complaining more and louder doesn't improve the situation.
Reporting the spam is the best kind of co-operation until a better solution is found.
As I said before, we get that it's frustrating having to wade through spam posts,
I'm just amazed by the number of people who actually click on them.
Presumably any Windows user unfortunate enough to click on one of those links gets a little present installed on their PC.
Site was hosted as a blog and I couldn't see any devious code or scripting.
I moved the thread and removed the spam (as I do every day) when I'm not working. We all have day jobs/lives, it's not as if people moaning gets the job done faster. Your accomplishment today was simply that there was one more thread to deal with.
As I said before, we get that it's frustrating having to wade through spam posts, it's frustrating having to remove them too but complaining more and louder doesn't improve the situation.
Reporting the spam is the best kind of co-operation until a better solution is found.
You really expect people not to complain? If a fire is raging people can only ignore it for so long until finally someone yells "FIRE!"
Anyways, isn't there something else you can do about this? I've never seen any tech site forum get targeted like this from random spammers. Its like they've singled out appleinsider for some reason. Isn't there some sort of software filter that can be used or some technique to deal with all of this?
Its like they've singled out appleinsider for some reason.
It can't be anything to do with fact Apple fanbois are one the most offensive, stupid,irrational,gullible, deluded,ignorant, arrogant (etc etc) group of people on the planet can it?
I moved the thread and removed the spam (as I do every day) when I'm not working. We all have day jobs/lives, it's not as if people moaning gets the job done faster. Your accomplishment today was simply that there was one more thread to deal with.
As I said before, we get that it's frustrating having to wade through spam posts, it's frustrating having to remove them too but complaining more and louder doesn't improve the situation.
Reporting the spam is the best kind of co-operation until a better solution is found.
I've reported spam and complained about the spam and contacted Mods directly. The later received no response at all. I see zero change in the level of spam over the past 6 months - it's increasing if anything.
It might help if AI gave some indication that they were concerned about the problem and were actively working on a solution. There has been no sign of that so far and your criticism of those who complain suggests that Mods don't welcome feedback or like being alerted to problems and that you have no concern about how users experience the site. It obviously hasn't occurred to you that people complain because it is intolerable and that maybe there is a real problem that needs addressing.
Based on your comments, I don't expect there to be any improvement in this problem anytime soon, if at all.
You really expect people not to complain? If a fire is raging people can only ignore it for so long until finally someone yells "FIRE!"
It doesn't put out the fire though.
Anyways, isn't there something else you can do about this? I've never seen any tech site forum get targeted like this from random spammers. Its like they've singled out appleinsider for some reason. Isn't there some sort of software filter that can be used or some technique to deal with all of this?
I don't have access to the server to change the site security e.g signups. AFAIK there is a captcha mechanism in place but spammers are signing up manually too and some must be able to bypass the captcha test.
I will try some tests on an offline vbulletin to see if I can write a plugin when I find time and if I make one that works, I can forward instructions to one of the admins. Writing these things isn't always as trivial as it seems though.
The concept is simple: when someone submits a post, check post count. If it's under say 5 posts, run it through a filter and find matching terms. On a match, suspend the user's privileges and move the thread to an invisible location.
To do that, you need a way to add filters, which means a database table that stores strings to match and an interface only accessible to mods and admins to add filters, you need the plugin correctly installed in vbulletin after learning how to make a vbulletin plugin that automates database changes without buggering up the forum (which would no doubt also receive complaints) and all this work done for free in spare time.
I've reported spam and complained about the spam and contacted Mods directly. The later received no response at all. I see zero change in the level of spam over the past 6 months - it's increasing if anything.
Spammers are sometimes posting multiple times at once - I've seen one posting as much as 22 threads in a very short space of time. This makes it look like there's more spam.
I do think it is getting worse but it's maybe about 10 spammers daily. They may even be from the same source (not IP though - they don't make it that simple) because it's usually video encoding software that all refer to each other.
There has been no sign of that so far and your criticism of those who complain suggests that Mods don't welcome feedback or like being alerted to problems and that you have no concern about how users experience the site.
Parents tell their kids to stop continually repeating the same thing for the simple reason that the issue has been heard once and even that was more than needed. I'm a user of the site too so your suggestion that I wouldn't care about how even I experience the site is naive.
Here is a demonstration of how the complaints come across:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNkp4QF3we8
If you were on the receiving end, what would be your solution? What do you expect the people in control of the site to do? To say 'fix the problem' is the easy answer but you should understand that doesn't help in any way.
Will it make it less of a hassle if you moderated all posts by new members until a post count of 5?
In the other thread about spam, I noted that I've sent the admins a custom vbulletin plugin filter that checks posts of new members against a list of regular expressions.
The other option is acquiring an akismet key but that will mean every single post regardless of post count is sent to an external server for filtering and we can't adjust their filtering rules.
On the other hand, the plugin filter requires the highest admin privileges to install and possibly to modify the filter list. Once one of the super admins manages to install/test it, it should cut out the majority of the offensive spam. Some will still get through though until we get the filter set right and I won't be able to update the rules but it should catch a decent amount.