http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/tags/spam Gaming Outpost Discussions » Tag: Spam - Recent Posts en-US Thu, 24 May 2012 11:09:09 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/search.php http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/possible-spam-comment#post-4002 Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:48:28 +0000 Tadeusz 4002@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>And it had fooled me, but not the professional spam killah' Aaron... </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/possible-spam-comment#post-4001 Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:30:42 +0000 Aaron Powell 4001@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>MJ-</p> <p>It's more than likely spam, as well. The give away is the bold first line that repeats the poster's name. Pretty much any comment you see with that pattern is spam. I don't know why spammers have adopted that, but there are thousands of spam in GO's quarantine that are similar. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/possible-spam-comment#post-3981 Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:38:35 +0000 M. J. Young 3981@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>O.K., I'm stumped again. There's a <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/jon_quick_boy_genius/#comment-40800">comment on Eric's article <em>John Quick: Boy Genius</em></a> which is either genuine or one of the most intelligent robot comments I've seen. Three things make me suspicious:</p> <ol> <li>The author gives his name, first name only, as the same name as the author of the article, which is at least a remarkable coincidence.</li> <li>Although the post is articulate and somewhat relevant, I am not certain that Eric's article has anything to do with "accelerated learning ideas" despite being about a "boy genius". I think a human reader would have recognized that this was not to do with that. On the other hand, I could be mistaken--this could be exactly what he means, stories related to genius.</li> <li>The link, though, causes me doubt. It's for information for speed reading courses, which is something to do with accelerated learning and nothing to do with what Eric wrote. It makes me think that this was a bot--an extremely well designed bot--Spamming the articles to get that link in place. I hesitate, though, because my stuff is connected to a commercial link, promoting my books and game materials, and that in itself should not be damning even if the link isn't totally relevant to Gaming Outpost's purpose.</li> </ol> <p>On the one hand, I try to err on the side of caution, and do not wish to delete anyone who is genuinely interested in participating in discussion here. On the other hand, he suggests he'll be back next month to discuss this further, and may be counting on the possibility that in a month we'll have forgotten his link is buried here.</p> <p>I was tempted to unapprove the post, but I'm not certain whether he would be able to see it if he returned, or if I would ever get back to delete it the rest of the way.</p> <p>It's your call, of course.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/possible-spam-comment#post-3902 Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:39:51 +0000 Aaron Powell 3902@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>It's spam. You can tell since it repeats the commenter's name in bold at the start of the message. My personal site has been getting a ton of those.</p> <p>I've taken care of it. Thanks for pointing it out. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/possible-spam-comment#post-3868 Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:19:12 +0000 M. J. Young 3868@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Aaron--</p> <p>Someone posted a comment this morning (2/20/8) on the article <em><a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/world_a_week_axe_age_above/">World a Week: Axe Age Above</a></em>. I've disapproved it but not marked it Spam because I wanted to check it with you. He writes under the name Bull Dagger, and it appears to be an effort to get a link to a site that sells weapons made of Damascus Steel. The comment itself is not entirely out of character for Gaming Outpost, but has nothing to do with the article to which it is attached.</p> <p>I wasn't sure whether to delete it; after all, we do talk about stuff like the quality of weapon materials, and I don't know that this is not a new member. However, I don't see an e-mail address so I can't ask him who he is.</p> <p>Thoughts?</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/spam-articles#post-1604 Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:58:09 +0000 Aaron Powell 1604@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Not easily, no. If you email me the name of spam authors as you notice them, I'll delete them. Hopefully, this'll be a temporary thing, since all new accounts need articles approved first, so we're only dealing with older accounts. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/spam-articles#post-1602 Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:40:04 +0000 M. J. Young 1602@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Aaron, is there a way that I can delete authors who exist solely to Spam the articles? I deleted an article by sarxinst (I think that's the spelling), but couldn't see a way to delete him, although this is at least two from him. When I follow the link to author information, I get the list of articles for that author, but nothing more useful.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/spam-articles#post-1401 Tue, 06 Nov 2007 11:42:03 +0000 Aaron Powell 1401@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>It's likely the article was posted from an account created before I made the change on how new user accounts are handled. If you see any more of those, you can simply delete them (there's a link at the bottom of the edit article page). </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/spam-articles#post-1370 Mon, 05 Nov 2007 21:20:58 +0000 M. J. Young 1370@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>There was a Spam article when I arrived today (before I saw this thread), which I marked as category Spam and deleted the contents; does that mean I see the Spam articles as if they are approved, or did it get through somehow?</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/spam-articles#post-1352 Sat, 03 Nov 2007 07:24:49 +0000 Aaron Powell 1352@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Okay, I've set this up. New users are now set to the "contributor" role and require an editor or administrator to approve their articles before they go live. All of you who already have accounts shouldn't be impacted by this, as it's only a change in setting for new users. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/spam-articles#post-1171 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 22:21:43 +0000 M. J. Young 1171@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>That makes sense. I know with Yahoo!Groups the only way to control Spam is to put all new posters on moderation, and then approve them if their first post is a clearly legitimate participation in the board.</p> <p>I've been trying to figure out how to delete the members who make these posts. I'd sort of like to comb through the member list and delete all those weird names that were obviously created by bots or spammers, but I having figured out how to do any of that. That's one reason I've not deleted the last few Spam articles--I want to be able to delete the members (and member profiles), too, because they'll usually have links in them that can be reached through the member directories, and one objective of the bots is to create links from other sites that will be crawled by the search engines.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/spam-articles#post-1167 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:28:58 +0000 Tadeusz 1167@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Fine with me.</p> <p>Eric </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/spam-articles#post-1164 Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:43:04 +0000 Aaron Powell 1164@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>They've started popping up. I've been deleting them, but it's kind of a pain. I'm trying to think of a solution to this. I think I may be able to force new articles into a moderation queue for approval before they go live. And once a writer has written something that isn't spam, his status can be updated to allow direct posting. How would a setup like that play with everyone? </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/article-system-tech-notes#post-332 Fri, 07 Sep 2007 09:18:21 +0000 Aaron Powell 332@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>I deleted it. There's a spambot hammering us right now, with something like 400 spams a day. Almost all of them are getting caught, but I've been deleting them as they slip through. Thanks for pointing this one out. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/article-system-tech-notes#post-321 Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:40:09 +0000 M. J. Young 321@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>I deleted comments by a couple of Spammers, but there is a comment <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/aventurien/#comment-1043">here</a> that seems to be outside my jurisdiction--no edit link when I view it. I thought I should call it to your attention.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/article-system-tech-notes#post-240 Thu, 30 Aug 2007 22:04:49 +0000 Aaron Powell 240@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>Yep, it looks like there is a bot. Which is actually pretty common. The comment spam blocker grabbed 66 today, all either "nice" or "interesting" or something of that sort. It's a good system but every now and then one slips through.</p> <p>Thanks for pointing it out. I've deleted it. </p> http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/topic/article-system-tech-notes#post-236 Thu, 30 Aug 2007 19:51:59 +0000 M. J. Young 236@http://gamingoutpost.com/discussions/ <p>I noticed on the front page that there was a comment on an old article, so I went to see it, <a href="http://gamingoutpost.com/article/game_ideas_unlimited_survival/#comment-61">here</a>. It looks like the work of a bot. The name "Nick" was hyperlinked to some sort of automotive site. I edited out both the link and the e-mail address, but left the comment (it was rather inoccuous, and editing was readily obvious while I didn't see the ability to delete until after I'd done the editing). Probably next time I would just delete the comment, but I thought I'd alert you to the possibility that there's a bot program out there that has figured out how to comment here.</p> <p>I'll keep on it.</p> <p>--M. J. Young </p>