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View Full Version : So half the threads on the front page are spam right now.



qazzquimby
2015-09-20, 12:05 PM
Sorry if this isn't helpful, but if no one is working on this, something has to be done. It's been getting gradually worse, and is now kind of ridiculous. It's easy enough to scroll past them, but it means that people get bumped onto the second page much faster, and removed from the conversation.

M Placeholder
2015-09-20, 01:12 PM
Sorry if this isn't helpful, but if no one is working on this, something has to be done. It's been getting gradually worse, and is now kind of ridiculous. It's easy enough to scroll past them, but it means that people get bumped onto the second page much faster, and removed from the conversation.

This.

Why are they not being removed as soon as they come up?

7th son of sons
2015-09-20, 01:17 PM
For real. I report them as they show up, but the one minute timer keeps me from hitting all of them before more come up.

7th son of sons
2015-09-20, 05:51 PM
At the time of me writing this, there are 32 Spam Posts on the front page. This is getting beyond stupid.

Network
2015-09-20, 06:04 PM
Could a moderator create a deletion bot for this specific purpose perhaps?

Or, given that the spam bot always seems to use every account just once, the administrator could make subscription more difficult for bots.

Aergoth
2015-09-20, 07:07 PM
There was a post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?438105-On-Spam-Threads) on the bugs/site issues section about this
It's assumed that the bots responsible are human-assisted or otherwise arranged specifically to be able to get onto this particular forum. Back when they were using OOTS related questions to test if someone is a human, the spam bots still got through.
And automating moderation like that can lead to some serious issues.

qazzquimby
2015-09-20, 07:41 PM
While obviously not a long term solution, systematically deleting all new and existing threads containing a certain frequency of "live stream" would kill virtually all the spam, and probably no legitimate threads.

Is IP banning a useful thing? That sounds easily avoided, and I don't know much about this.

Roland St. Jude
2015-09-21, 03:59 PM
Sheriff: Thank you for your concern. We're aware of the uptick in spam threads. We're also aware of the various possible approaches including both social and technical.

Please just report spam threads, if you'd like. But don't feel obligated to personally report every thread; collectively, they'll all get reported by someone. We'll get to them as promptly as we can.

Also, please don't create new threads here about it. That just adds one more thread (and multiple posts) to our list of things to do, which doesn't help with spam removal.