Spam clean-up list

Back to the crux of the matter:

Stripping links doesn’t stop the spammers, but inconveniences genuine users.
Blocking the security hole you discovered hasn’t stopped the spammers.
So…

Have you decided whether or not this is a possibility yet?

Beeesneees, do you see many spam posts that still would have got through if the filter was working properly? The few I have looked at recently all have links, and so ought to have been blocked, but seem not to have been, which I presume is an error in the way the filter works.

Hello Our Tort,

You have to choose a file and after a pic from the file and in a small yellow rectangle appears on your message body with the notice “upload photo” you click there and your pic will be downloaded. Now I downloaded one for show you that I can download the pic in a shape of a link. And after sending the link changes pic.

Downloading is successful but I can’t send you the pic because it has a link with http and I tried to delete the http and put an asterisk but the answer was hyperlinks don’t be allowed.

If you find a solution write me please.

Many thanks in advance.

Bye:
Kati

I think we should put a time limit on the hyperlinks ban. For example, if a user has been registered for a certain time he or she should be allowed to post hyperlinks in their messages. Spammers usually don’t register first and then wait until they spam. They register and spam immediately.

TOEFL listening lectures: What is the main danger of obesity?

Hello Torsten,

I am not an expert but what you recommend it sounds very good. I am curious of the opinion of others.

Regards:
Kati Svaby

If you mean the link stripping filter, I presume the only difference would be that the posts would still have come through but without the links.

Possibly I’m missing something, but I still don’t see how this will stop the spam posts. It seems to me that it will only strip the posts of their links. The last response to this question was that the human spammers won’t post when they realise that their links don’t work… however, the vast majority of these spammers appear to be bots.

As I understand it, a filter has been introduced that actually blocks posts with links (it doesn’t merely strip links and then post the stripped version). For example, if I try to post

http COLON //www DOT bbc DOT co DOT uk

then I get a message saying “Hyperlinks are not allowed” and the post is blocked.

However, this filter does not seem to be working 100% reliably, as evidenced by the fact that some spam posts containing links are still getting through.

I hope that Serge will be back to clarify the exact situation.

I don’t seem to have had a response to this:

On the face of things, there doesn’t appear to have been any movement towards a solution.

Hi Bez,

I have spam on the thread: How good are you making conversation.

Many thanks.

Kati

Sorry Kati,

I’m on a tablet device at the moment so I can’t delete it as the anti-spam feature requires Internet Explorer.

I don’t seem to have had a response to this:

On the face of things, there doesn’t appear to have been any movement towards a solution.

No response :frowning:

… and now we’re in for another weekend of events which will be spammed across the forum.

… as expected.

This has to be affecting the forums negatively now.
I suspect some genuine messages will be missed, or, even worse, removed accidentally.

Have you decided whether or not it is possible to place a new member’s first posts into some form of ‘moderation’ so that spammers can be weeded out before they reach the forums and genuine current members are not affected yet?

I don’t understand why we don’t, certainly as a first try, simply properly implement the measure that blocked posts containing links, except from established members. This seemed at one time to be partially implemented, but clearly is now not working properly (or at all), since spam posts containing links are getting through.

I don’t think it ever worked properly. It just happened to be made after a weekend when there was a natural drop-off of spam posts. (They’re more prolific during big sporting events. I dread to think what might happen when the Olympics are under way.)

Time for action, surely?

I just now stopped by for a quick visit, and noticed that there were 34 spammers logged in. (Yes, I literally checked the profiles of all 34.) At least five of those spammers have over 100 posts EACH. The most popular forums currently have 5 (or more) pages of spam before you get to any real posts.

[size=125][color=red]This site is currently being swallowed alive by spammers![/size]

Lots of sites put newly registered members on moderation, and their first post (or posts) must be approved before they can post freely. I just don’t understand why that is not being done here right now.

In addition, every spam post that I looked at had what appeared to be plenty of live links.
[color=white].
EDIT:
A brand new spammer-member named ‘Anjel520’ currently has 422 posts, and is still logged in, and is still posting as I type this. Who knows what the total spam-post count will end up being? And that’s just one of the many new spammer-registrations today. No wonder the forums are drowning in spam right now. :frowning:
[color=white].

I wasn’t some time on the forum but now I see this is probably an epidemic,it seems that someone wants to destroy this page.

Hello Torsten,

I wanted to go to a thread, but it was unsuccessful.I tried other thread but I couldn’t get there. I got on the page:
*/www.english-test.net/forum/ftopic46595.html
after

How can we write on a thread?

Many thanks:
Kati Svaby

Hello,

Is there anybody who could say to me how I can get a thread.

My problem began when I tried to go on the thread “Speaking English for 20 seconds a day?” and " Megan Skype Session" I got a page from where I couldn’t go anywhere.

Later I tried to open other threads but after each attempt I got to this page which is a dead end.

I can reach only those threads if I got a notification from this thread in my archive. If I try to get around and I use the Google the result is the same, I get the page of dead end.

Otherwise these two threads - that I had looked for - never sent notification.

It is problem to move on the Forum because if you click sth what is recommended
down you get again this page of dead end. everything begins again. This is a circulus vitiosus.

Please if somebody knows the solution, share with me and those who don’t know.

MANY THANKS:

Kati Svaby