Spam crap everywhere

[TheFirstOnes]

k.

/100000chars

[Frolk]

question about the spam stuff, do they spam down other game forums aswell?

[Lochton]

question about the spam stuff, do they spam down other game forums aswell?

Yes, they do but not to the same amount.

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What's even worse is that some of their threads have like 50 views. What sort of ppl even looks at those kind of threads?

Well, I guess the same who comments just for the shits and giggles.

[Julian Rayne]

I mean some of those spams are at least helpful, I was looking for a Black Magic specialist for years now.

You could have just gone to one of the many Warlock guides on Elitist Jerks (formerly) or Icy Veins or something.

[Deleted]

Funny that right now the bots have spammed XD

[Frumpy Frumpy Frak]

I find it funny that I've seen genuine threads be submitted for mod approval while this trash gets through day in, day out without fail.

You'd think they'd have learned by now and posted an extra mod for when these threads show up, considering they happen around the same time every day.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Could this be combated with adding the 10 post rule to creating new threads?

I think that's the correct solution honestly.

[Deleted]

Well.

Yes, the spam threads are annoying.

The mods are aware and they are doing everything they can. They are doing this for free and on their own time, too, which is pretty important.

The suggestions of technical measures are a bit of an old story. Sure, post them in the suggestions area, but please realize that what you see is already a tip of an iceberg, a lot of the spam is getting stopped before you see it. The vast majority of suggested measures are either already implemented (and what you see is what gets *past* them) or are infeasible to implement or won't really stop much / have big drawbacks which would the life of legit posters worse in other ways. Still, if you think you have something to offer, post in the suggestions. Who knows, maybe you really have something that would help.

But still, the spam threads are annoying. Damn annoying.

10 post count before you Can post new threads would remove most of the spam

Wait was that rant just a suckupp post?

[rda]

10 post count before you Can post new threads would remove most of the spam

Wait was that rant just a suckupp post?

A bot would just create 10 posts and post a thread after that. You might have seen some of the weird posts which looked misplaced. It's bots reposting random posts made by humans - likely in order to be able to post links.

What you propose would have some effect, but as I said, what you are seeing is *already* just a tip of an iceberg. Nothing much would change.

(Me sucking up to the mods? Good joke. I just understand what's involved.)

[Nathanyel]

You'd think they'd have learned by now and posted an extra mod for when these threads show up, considering they happen around the same time every day.

"around" being the keyword. From my experience in sniping spam threads for rep on the Wowhead forums, the biggest surge is in my (EU) morning-ish, 6-8 AM CET, but occasional mini-bulks can happen all over the day.

[Deleted]

I've found love AND made a fortune because of that so called "spam"!

Me too, and all I had to do was send all of my money to a Nigerian prince!

[Netherling]

What's even worse is that some of their threads have like 50 views. What sort of ppl even looks at those kind of threads?

I guess you don't want to be a black magic specialist then? You'll be sorry when i curse you all

[Justpassing]

I wonder if this black magic stuff what Nostradamus did, then I'd totally throw my money at them.

[Shridevi]

It shouldn't require moderators. Add a captcha bot check when creating a new thread. Or filter threads with subjects containing strings like "a-b-c-d-" through regular expressions. Or limit threads created to one every ten minutes per user. There are 500 ways of fixing this. This page is officially BROKEN and the owners DON'T CARE.

[Jimson]

It shouldn't require moderators. Add a captcha bot check when creating a new thread. Or filter threads with subjects containing strings like "a-b-c-d-" through regular expressions. Or limit threads created to one every ten minutes per user. There are 500 ways of fixing this. This page is officially BROKEN and the owners DON'T CARE.

You write like someone who's been banned from the WoW forums.

[Lochton]

10 post count before you Can post new threads would remove most of the spam

Wait was that rant just a suckupp post?

@rda is correct, though. There are the 'copy-bots' which tries to copy previous messages to reach 10 posts and post links. There was a hilarious example not long ago, where a bit had copied a text from a completely different forum.

A bot would just create 10 posts and post a thread after that. You might have seen some of the weird posts which looked misplaced. It's bots reposting random posts made by humans - likely in order to be able to post links.

What you propose would have some effect, but as I said, what you are seeing is *already* just a tip of an iceberg. Nothing much would change.

(Me sucking up to the mods? Good joke. I just understand what's involved.)

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I find it funny that I've seen genuine threads be submitted for mod approval while this trash gets through day in, day out without fail.

You'd think they'd have learned by now and posted an extra mod for when these threads show up, considering they happen around the same time every day.

Moderators are a short and valuable resource here, they aren't paid, so you can't just have them waiting around for a surge of spam threads.

And threads here get VERY rarely put for moderation approval.

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It shouldn't require moderators. Add a captcha bot check when creating a new thread. Or filter threads with subjects containing strings like "a-b-c-d-" through regular expressions. Or limit threads created to one every ten minutes per user. There are 500 ways of fixing this. This page is officially BROKEN and the owners DON'T CARE.

It isn't as easy as you believe. You cannot really limit a lot of things in the titles. And gating threads behind a 10 minute wall can be defeating of real threads as well, could make the spambots harder to find.

The page isn't broken, as you are seeing it. And I doubt the owners are without care.

[Shridevi]

You write like someone who's been banned from the WoW forums.

Sure, I'll take your bait. I write like a web dev with a comp sci degree. What's your excuse?

[MoanaLisa]

Thread is in the wrong place and has been addressed several times in the appropriate forum.

You'd think they'd have learned by now and posted an extra mod for when these threads show up, considering they happen around the same time every day.

Moderators do what they can but we are all volunteers, we can't be everywhere at once and because we are volunteers we don't do shift work. We are not assigned times. We drop by the site when we can and are happy to help.


It's a bummer for me too to drop by at midnight local time and see several dozen spam threads. We clean them up as soon as we see them. And yes, many of them do not get through to the live boards.

As for the 10-post suggestion: spammers are honestly easier to spot and ban if they create a thread instead of loading valid threads up with their crap just to get to 10 posts.

Closing.

[chaud]

I'd like to add that unfortunately it isn't only bots posting these threads, but people.

We've IP banned some but that isn't very effective and blocking a broad range would impact actual users. They have actually sent in contact forms asking to be unbanned. I'm aware this is a problem and it is something we are working on.