Legend

Question

A place to discuss spam?

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
May 6, 2011
6 replies
5860 views

I am not the only one to think that the Report Spam thread is not the proper place to carry discussions on any topic, even if they are related to spam, spammers, or ways to fight spam. Such discussions unnecessarily clutter the Spam thread, even making it difficult to see if the spam one is about to report has been reported before or not.

The idea isn't mine; it was posted in the Spam thread by someone else, but I am willing to back it here. Could we have a thread to discuss spam related topics, and move there the messages posted recently on the subject in the Spam thread?

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

oformu

Participant

Found this?

http://spamlinks.net/track-report-addresses.htm

Any help?

~graffiti

Legend

What is it exactly that you would like help with?

Noel Carboni

Legend

Just a wild guess: He is offering that link as help for our spam problems.

-Noel

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

I find it incredible that the spam attacks we have been experiencing, and that have crippled the forums, do not arouse anyone's attention.

In another thread of this same forum, I posted very recently the following idea -for which I do not claim paternity, as it just unites suggestions from other participants- but it hasn't deserved any response:

The number of sports-related spam posts in the Reader forum has been on the increase, specially on days of important matches. And, as hard as JC and company strive to eliminate them quickly, they frequently remain there for hours after being posted.
I always undestood that one way to help in combating spam was to eliminate spam messages as soon as possible, not in hours. Some time ago, I suggested in this same thread, and combining suggestions from others, that some of the users that daily report spam in the forums they frequent be appointed as some kind of "limited moderators", with the only privilege of temporarily removing messages that for them are obvious spam. If considered necessary (I wouldn't consider it necessary, for they have been reporting spam for months), the removed messages could be temporarily stored in a safe place where they could be revised by someone with more experience and authority, before being eliminated for ever.
Some persons have questioned this idea, on the grounds that these limited moderators could use their powers for unjustly removing messages from people they do not like. I find this very thought insulting for the people who report messages daily, and could equally been said, equally insultingly, of any of the present moderators.
It has also been pointed out that the idea is not even worth considering unless someone is under the illusion of it ever being implemented. Been a complete ignorant of the innards of the software behind any forum, my naive impression is that this simple idea cannot be all that difficult to implement. And if it were implemented, spam messages would only be vissible for minutes, not hours. And I am naive enough to think that this would even make easier the task for all of those who are now trying to delete spam messages and disable their posters.
In short, I still think the idea is at least worth considering.

There are days, specially during weekends, when one has to wade through two full pages of spam topics to get at the first genuine topic. I simply cannot believe that I am the only one who gets upset by this. Or perhaps others just get out and wait for the coast to be clear again before offering any help?

J

Jochem van Dieten

Inspiring

Claudio González wrote:
In another thread of this same forum, I posted very recently the following idea -for which I do not claim paternity, as it just unites suggestions from other participants- but it hasn't deserved any response:

If it didn't merit a response the first time, why would it merit a response when reposted verbatim?

adobe-admin

Community Manager

Any post with a link in it to me seems to be an attempt at Search Engine Optimization (aka SEO, i.e., causing a particular site to rise in Google's search rankings).

If it is a given that Google uses the appearance of links on other sites to a particular site to set its rankings (and the actuality of this is a closely-guarded secret), and IF Google picks up forum posts for its searches (a fact) and doesn't exclude the links from ranking calculations (an assumption), then a forum post would theoretically count as another web site publishing a link to the target site. Any web site publishing user content and not blocking links is a target.

Some people sell services and take money to supposedly artificially/quickly increase the search ranking of your web site.

Hence these spammers are making money at our expense.

-Noel

This may become a moot point in the future if we can get a "no follow" attribute set for forum messages (95% sure we will have this). Then the issue becomes letting the spammers know about this change.

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

P.S.: Please take a look at this:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3719885#3719885

Noel Carboni

Legend

I don't know about others, but I'm having a little trouble reading it... See the attached screen grab.

-Noel

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

In spite of the forums being fantastically slow right now, I have no problem reading the whole thread; nothing like your screenshot. In any case, the link was to this screenshot:

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Claudio,

I have only just seen this thread, and only because you brought it up again, even though I enter the forum every day and read up on almost all threads with new posts.

I believe others may have overlooked it as well, back there in the hazy days of early May.

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

Yes, Jacob, it would seem that I am becoming a champion in opening threads nobody notices/cares, in answering posts to poor souls who never manage to find their way back, in propossing ideas that don't even warm anyone, ... Sometimes I wonder if I am not also becoming invisible.

~graffiti

Legend

Thanks Claudio.

It was just getting a little busy over there.

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

Graf, the only problem is that nobody with the power to open such a thread and move to it the already posted messages seems to be paying attention...

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

...or has payed any attention in about a whole month.

pwillener

Legend

In another forum where I am a moderator, we have recently implemented stricter anti-spam measures. After that, sign-ups by potential spammers from India, Pakistan, China, etc. have dropped by more than 90%. Naturally, spam posts also have dropped to almost zero.

I have already posted this link in another topic, but it seems to have gone unnoticed. So here it is, one more time

http://www.stopforumspam.com/

This is really a very effective method. IP addresses and email addresses of known forum spammers are shared with all participating forums. The API can be used to check for known spammer IP and email addresses during the sign-up, and just immediately stop the sign-up if it is one of these.

So far, more than 3 million spammer IP & email addresses are in the database. I am sure that this would also help the Adobe forums tremenduously if this method could be implemented.

http://www.stopforumspam.com/

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