Has anyone else noticed this?

[jbennet]

Lately there has been a lot of spam threads from users where it is thier 1st post, advertising porn sites, viagra etc..... They usualy have just one link to it and thats it in the post

Ive reported it but its becoming a problem

[cscgal]

I tried replying to your IM but you had already signed off by the time I got to my computer. The mod team is well aware of the problem, but unfortunately, the more we grow, the more we get onto the radar of all of the big spammers out there.

The following is what we've already done to help the problem:We do IP bans of all of the big spammers but it's near impossible because they all use proxies.
It's required to validate your email address before you can post.
If a new member registers and then their welcome email bounces, they're permabanned.
Many of our moderators have volunteered to help curtail spam in forums they typically don't visit (such as the IT Water Cooler).

[jbennet]

sorry i signed off but it was like 12:00 :)

[cscgal]

It's 3 am right now but I couldn't sleep so I just got out of bed to get a last dose of DaniWeb before I start counting sheep again.

[jbennet]

i was already in my bed. was posting from my PDA lol

[Ancient Dragon]

From my observations it doesn't look like spam and porn stay up on DaniWeb very long -- there are now a lot of moderators from all over the world (timezones) who can delete those posts within the hour or less.

[The Dude]

Spam is becoming a BIG ISSUE on many sites lately....

I think it would be a good idea to start filtering all posts on users that have less than 10 posts..

[John A]

If I may quote happygeek's blog entry:
http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1056.html
80% of spam that targets Internet users in North America and Europe is actually generated by a small hardcore group of no more than 200 professional spam gangs.
:(

Someone should just go and arrest those guys...

[jbennet]

they did. Did you hear about the massive raid in britain a month or 2 ago?

[WaltP]

they did. Did you hear about the massive raid in britain a month or 2 ago?

Then why is it still happening? ;)

[happygeek]

The real problem is that the main players in the spam game are, seemingly, above the law.

Just as the main players in any organised crime gang tend to be rather hard to catch, even though law enforcement are well aware of who they are and where they are.

I suspect the fact that many of the major spam gangs are based in Eastern Europe doesn't help much, as certain countries here have a very poor reputation when it comes to helping in the investigation and arrest of suspects in computer related crime. Given the other problems many of these countries face, I guess spam is not high on their list of priorities right now.

[WaltP]

It's probably producing income for the country... :-|
And the way they spell it's obvious that English is not even a second language with them! :twisted:

[happygeek]

I suspect that the 'balck economy' and the 'real economy' are rather closely related in many an Eastern European country, to be honest.

[roryt]

Just an idea:

Many forums stop you from posting any threads until you have say 10 posts. The only problem I can think of (it is quite a big problem) is that there is a high number of interesting support requests on a users 1st post. Like I said just an idea.

[cscgal]

> Many forums stop you from posting any threads until you have say 10 posts.
This used to be true very long ago but just in the Webmaster Marketplace (buy/sell/trade services). But what was happening was, to get around this, everyone was just posting in other random forums hoping the moderation team would move their thread for them. Very few posts actually made it through. It ended up just being 10000 hours of unnecessary work for the moderation team, and the rule was done away with as it stifled growth too much.

[roryt]

Aren't people on this forum clever and evil. I would never thought of putting it in a different thread and hoping it would get moved.

I can see why it would effect the forum growth.

[John A]

Aren't people on this forum clever and evil. I would never thought of putting it in a different thread and hoping it would get moved.

Unfortunately, many forum newbies still tend to do this; they'll dig up some old thread that was posted 2 years ago or something, and then piggyback the thread with a somewhat-unrelated support question, and creating extra work for some moderator.

Luckily, I haven't seen this happening recently.

[WaltP]

Unfortunately, many forum newbies still tend to do this; they'll dig up some old thread that was posted 2 years ago or something, and then piggyback the thread with a somewhat-unrelated support question, and creating extra work for some moderator.

Sounds like a job for SuperDeleteButton Man :mrgreen:

[cscgal]

Noooooo! We never ever ever delete such posts. If they're way off topic we split them off into new threads. If they're not way off topic then we leave them be :)

[roryt]

CSCGAL comes to the recue....

It is pretty funny when you answer someones question that is at the top of a thread when someone has bumped it up by posting another question and you realise that it is about 2 years old....