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Recent spam thread surge


John
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What's with the unusual level of automated phishing/spam threads popping up lately? Have there always been this many and I've just not noticed (or they've been deleted faster)? Or has Des finally sold us out for an advance copy of Twilight Princess?
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[quote name='John']What's with the unusual level of automated phishing/spam threads popping up lately? Have there always been this many and I've just not noticed (or they've been deleted faster)? Or has Des finally sold us out for an advance copy of Twilight Princess?[/quote]


Bro theres always been alot of spam threads. Ive seen like "whos yur farite chircter" threads"all over. I don't think its gotten worse and I think the mods are doing a good job in cleaing up and helping out. If anything OB has gotten better than it has been just go to the OB anthology. There will alwyas be spam threads but I dont think its gotten worse. If anything better.
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[COLOR=Black][SIZE=1][B]Not only spam [I]threads[/I], but spam posts as well. If people can't post a certain amount of characters, or have a specific reason behind things, then they should be deleted. Just my opinion, not to critizize the mods in anyway whatsoever. I think they do a fantastic job; alot better than most sites do nowadays.[/B][/SIZE][/COLOR]
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[font=arial]I'm actually not sure what the technical reason is for these types of auto-spammers, but yes, they are on the increase. Apparently they are now finding ways around vB's regular security measures. Again, I have no idea how they achieve this, but somehow they manage.

I'll have a talk with Justin about it as soon as possible to see what we can do. Luckily when we take some action against these bots, things calm down again...so hopefully this isn't going to be a continual severe problem.[/font]
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[color=#4B0082]There have been a lot more advertising threads popping up in the last few months, mostly in the Web Site Workshop and PC/Mac. We've banned a lot of accounts that signed up just to spam advertisements, and I've also banned several IP addresses. So we are working on the problem.

As for why there's been such a large number lately, I really have no idea.[/color]
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[SIZE=1]Interesting, most interesting.

What with my time being mostly taken up with high school at the moment, I have to admit apart from the few incidents I've noticed in the Website sub-forum, I haven't really noticed any major increase in spam. Given that these kinds of problems however are usually swiftly handled by the staff, I think as James said it's really only a case of seeing where the problem lies in vB and sorting it out. And given how skilled Justin is, I think that it's only a matter of time.[/SIZE]
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The only true bad spam incident that I think we should even be lightly concerned with was the spam outrage that occured in the Adventure Square. Somebody would keep on regsitering a new account, and then cut and paste random, useless quotes from other threads into a wide variety of threads. After getting banned, he would keep on appearing. It appeared that the trend stopped tho.
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[quote name='Doublehex']The only true bad spam incident that I think we should even be lightly concerned with was the spam outrage that occured in the Adventure Square. Somebody would keep on regsitering a new account, and then cut and paste random, useless quotes from other threads into a wide variety of threads. After getting banned, he would keep on appearing. It appeared that the trend stopped tho.[/quote]

Yep, four days and four accounts later, Lexy/Shiro/Lexina/Lexi is no more. Thanks to Dagger for saving my mental health! ;D

And thanks to the people of the community for being so active on reporting about the problem, I don't think I've ever received as much PMs and e-mails from so many different people in such a short amount of time. Thanks a bunch!
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[quote name='Sandy']And thanks to the people of the community for being so active on reporting about the problem, I don't think I've ever received as much PMs and e-mails from so many different people in such a short amount of time. Thanks a bunch![/quote]

[SIZE=1]I second that, I was really impressed at how quickly people acted. But Sandy, you've gotta leave some meat for the rest of us you know. ^_~ Well done with the quick reactions on all parts there.[/SIZE]
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[quote name='Doublehex']Spam is spam, no matter how it is from. Besides, your reasoning dosen't explain how the N. Korea debate thread turned into a discussion regarding the humane reasons of bombing Hiroshima.[/quote] Um, no. No it's not. That's not what this thread is about. There's forum spam and there's automated ad spam. They're completely different, and this thread is about automated ad spam. kthxbai.
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[quote name='Doublehex']Besides, your reasoning dosen't explain how the N. Korea debate thread turned into a discussion regarding the humane reasons of bombing Hiroshima.[/quote]

Well, as discussions go, they tend to change their point-of-view when they continue for some time, all depending on who participates in the discussion. It's called a train of thought, which in the North Korea-thread went something like:

North Korea > nuclear testings > nuclear weapons > USA > bombing of Hiroshima > laws of war

It's only natural that discussions and debates live, and the same thing is happening to this thread as well. Don't mix it with off-topic discussion, which means bringing a whole new, out-of-the-blue topic into the conversation (like "scrap North Korea, let's talk about candy bars!").

All in all, it's great that you're worried, John, but I don't think anything special is happening on the spam-front, at least nothing that the staff can't handle. ;D
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[quote name='Sandy']It's only natural that discussions and debates live, and the same thing is happening to this thread as well. Don't mix it with off-topic discussion, which means bringing a whole new, out-of-the-blue topic into the conversation (like "scrap North Korea, let's talk about candy bars!"). [/quote]

[SIZE=1]Actually Sandy, typically when a thread has veered completely off it's original purpose, in the North Korean threads case, as to whether or not they were a threat to a point where we're discussing the morality of nuclear weapons, it's usually about then staff close the thread and advise people if they want to continue such a discussion to do it in a thread with such a title.

After all what would your response be to read a thread titled "Finnish Cuisine", which when you clicked the last reply was discussing WW2. It's called Off-Topic, and such threads are as I said, usually closed. [/SIZE]
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[QUOTE=Gavin][SIZE=1]Actually Sandy, typically when a thread has veered completely off it's original purpose, in the North Korean threads case, as to whether or not they were a threat to a point where we're discussing the morality of nuclear weapons, it's usually about then staff close the thread and advise people if they want to continue such a discussion to do it in a thread with such a title.

After all what would your response be to read a thread titled "Finnish Cuisine", which when you clicked the last reply was discussing WW2. It's called Off-Topic, and such threads are as I said, usually closed. [/SIZE][/QUOTE]


Aww, come on! Don't tell me you don't see the connection between North Korea and the morality of nuclear weapons! Nukes were, in fact, the reason people are worried about North Korea. That's where the discussion led to, so wouldn't it be superficial to cut out a good debate just because it changed the point-of-view? Maybe the title could be changed for something more fitting, but closing down an otherwise quality thread would be quite silly.

Finnish Cuisine (something nobody wants to talk about, actually, cause it sucks ;P), on the other hand, has no relation to the Second World War.

Rules aren't always so straightforward, which you'll no doubt will find out if you become a mod yourself (if you already aren't on another message board, that is). It all comes down to how they are interpreted. ;D
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[quote name='Sandy']Aww, come on! Don't tell me you don't see the connection between North Korea and the morality of nuclear weapons! Nukes were, in fact, the reason people are worried about North Korea. That's where the discussion led to, so wouldn't it be superficial to cut out a good debate just because it changed the point-of-view? Maybe the title could be changed for something more fitting, but closing down an otherwise quality thread would be quite silly.[/quote]

[SIZE=1]While I accept that nuclear weapons were indeed the central focus of the threat posed by Korea, if we can indeed call Kimmy a threat, the morality of actually having nuclear weapons is quite a different topic, which should have a different thread if we want to talk about it. It means that those who want to talk about nuclear weapons and their morality have a thread to discuss that topic in, and those who want to talk about Kimmy and the threat he poses have their own and the two don't get mixed.

I'm not saying the North Korea thread should be closed, just that the WMD morality debate should have it's own thread. For instance, if you wish to continue this discussion on what is "off-topic" we should probably do it in another thread that is not about "Spam Thread Surge".[/SIZE]
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[font=arial]This thread's really gone off topic...lol

As for the North Korea thread...morality of WMD and the North Korean discussion are close enough to each other that they can comfortably co-exist in the same thread. We don't need seperate threads for every split of the hair.

As long as people don't stray too far from the central focus, it's all fine.[/font]
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