Spam posts: Please do not reply to them!

Patchman · Post by **Patchman** » 20 Dec 2006 18:34

Recently there have been a number of spam bots posting spam here in the forums.

Please do NOT reply to these posts!

The bots usually enable topic notifications for their posts, which means that if someone replies they know that the forum is active and their posts are getting read. This only makes it more worthwhile to post more spam in the future!

If you notice a post that is spam, contact a moderator. The fastest way is via IRC, #tycoon at irc.quakenet.org or the forum chat applet.

DO NOT reply to the post. No matter how witty you think you may be, and no matter how angry the post makes you. Contact a moderator and wait for it to be removed, please.

orudge_roaming · Post by **orudge_roaming** » 23 Dec 2006 14:56

Further to this, I have taken the step of (perhaps only temporarily) banning signups from *.info e-mail addresses, as a lot of these spammers seem to be using them. If you have a genuine .info e-mail address and have now either been banned, or can't sign up, please e-mail me (forums @ tt-forums .net) and I'll see what we can do.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused to genuine users.

Raichase · Post by **Raichase** » 23 Dec 2006 22:44

Finally, it should be common sense, but some people will do it anyway - don't click on the links, they usually contain viruii, trojans, god knows what else, designed to make your life miserable.

We clean them up as fast as possible, but as soon as you notice one, contact one of us to remove it.

As Patchman said, best way is in IRC. Just highlight us in turn until you get one of us. Usually, I'll be annoyed at the highlight, but if it's for a good reason, I'll come clean up. Did enough cleaning up last night

.

Purno · Post by **Purno** » 24 Dec 2006 09:38

Raichase wrote:We clean them up as fast as possible, but as soon as you notice one, contact one of us to remove it.

As Patchman said, best way is in IRC. Just highlight us in turn until you get one of us. Usually, I'll be annoyed at the highlight, but if it's for a good reason, I'll come clean up. Did enough cleaning up last night .

Not to offend, but it happened a few times no moderator (at least not one which moderators the specific section) was online, while quite some users already noticed the spam (god knows how many people actually clicked the link).

Raichase · Post by **Raichase** » 24 Dec 2006 09:42

Purno wrote:Not to offend, but it happened a few times no moderator (at least not one which moderators the specific section) was online, while quite some users already noticed the spam (god knows how many people actually clicked the link).

Well, that does offend a little.

I can assure you, we're not sitting on our hands. If we SEE it or someone brings it to our attention, we're all over it. However, if we've finished our cursory reading of the forums and are off doing other things, we need to be yelled at to be notified of it...

Besides, we can't be everywhere at once.

Purno · Post by **Purno** » 24 Dec 2006 09:50

I'm not saying you moderators do a bad job. I'm sure you do the best you can. I can understand you got other thingies to do too, but if these spambots keep spamming like the did so far, perhaps make those who can mod only a section be global mods.

Just my 2 cents. And no offence intended; I'm sure you're doing everything you can.

jonty-comp · Post by **jonty-comp** » 24 Dec 2006 11:16

Yes, one of the problems is that, when these spambots do post, there is often no moderators around that can delete them.
Is the "Type the letters you see" authentication thing enabled for new accounts on the forum? If not, I strongly recommend you start using it, or maybe get a better authentication thingummy.

Raichase · Post by **Raichase** » 24 Dec 2006 11:42

jonty-comp wrote:Is the "Type the letters you see" authentication thing enabled for new accounts on the forum?

They are easily able to evade this, sadly.

DeletedUser21 · Post by **DeletedUser21** » 24 Dec 2006 11:42

Spambots, blaargh... We had tonnes of then at Purno's forum aswell.

Give me Fembots, their better.

Purno · Post by **Purno** » 24 Dec 2006 11:54

Mr. X wrote:We had tonnes of then at Purno's forum aswell.

Those were even worse, those registered and sent everyone a mail to activate their account... That's why I closed the forum.

Steve · Post by **Steve** » 24 Dec 2006 13:18

Raichase wrote:
jonty-comp wrote:Is the "Type the letters you see" authentication thing enabled for new accounts on the forum?
They are easily able to evade this, sadly.

The default methods have been beaten yes, but there are other upgrades that could be made to stop automated registering.

SpComb · Post by **SpComb** » 24 Dec 2006 14:29

Indeed, there are several phpBB MODs that could be used to make registering harder to automate, and defeat the more simple bots entirely. It might be a good idea to do some research into them if the spambotting gets worse.

Post by **orudge** » 24 Dec 2006 19:40

Well, I've removed the .info e-mail ban for now, and upgraded the visual confirmation (CAPTCHA) to a more complex one. We'll see how things go.

As for the moderator issue, it's a busy time of year what with Christmas and so on, so not all the moderators can be on the forum all of the time. Generally, we have enough people to cover things - if I think there may be a need for more (global) moderators, I may then take further action.

spaceman-spiff · Post by **spaceman-spiff** » 04 Jan 2007 05:34

A friendly warning to the person who's replying to the recent spam attacks, please don't and let it be taken away by a moderator

Post by **orudge** » 04 Jan 2007 11:51

Indeed, occasionally the spam posts may be there for a few hours if there isn't a moderator available, but please just try to ignore the posts and we will deal with them as quickly as we can.

Raichase · Post by **Raichase** » 04 Jan 2007 22:46

Even though I'm not officially moderating for the next week or so, I'll still remove any spam that is on the forums, so bug me in #tycoon or send me a PM, I'll clean it up.

Raichase · Post by **Raichase** » 03 Feb 2007 08:16

Drawing attention back to this thread for a minute - I have seen users replying to spam again.

Remember, posting IN A THREAD "a mod should lock this" does NOTHING. PM all mods and admins you can get your hands on instead...

Thankyou.

Born Acorn · Post by **Born Acorn** » 03 Feb 2007 14:56

We've just had another bout of spam, and people feel the need to reply yet again with typically useless posts. Please, heed the advice given by patchman and Raichase, and when you see a spam thread or post, do not reply, just notify a Moderator or Administrator via any method you can.

Replying will only do good to increase the amount of spam we recieve here.

Post by **orudge** » 04 Feb 2007 16:01

Note also that at the moment, I personally am rather busy, and a PM sent to me may not get read for a few days. If I'm active on IRC, you can contact me then - otherwise, it's probably best to try to contact the other moderators. Keep an eye out on the "Who's Online" status to see if any mods are online. Of course, you can still PM me, but by the time I am able to read the message, the spam may have been long dealt with.

orudge_roaming · Post by **orudge_roaming** » 05 Feb 2007 19:57

Another note... I have temporarily banned users with names starting with "aber" from signing up. A few of the spambots had names starting with this... while there are spammers under other names that post, this may help a bit until a more permanent solution can be implemented.

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