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Hi all -

I don't know if it's just me, or the board really is being overrun with spammers.  Personally, I reserve the 12th circle of hell for these morons.  I am illiterate as far as site management is concerned, but is there some kind of spam protection a website can do, to at least cut down on the volume?  Something that might help John with this?

Hi Paul
the only spam I have been getting lately on this site is when I check recent unread topics and that is only once in awhile and those are fairly easy to avoid.
there are other sites that I get much more, All I have to do is read the titles here,and then I just don't open them.
IMO the admin here is much more efficient at getting rid of spam than most other sites I visit.
at one time I had down loaded a pop-up multiplayer (thats what it seemed like) I then downloaded malwarebytes (its free)and that got rid of the problem.
thinking back over the past month I think I have seen 3 to 5 spam post's< I just don't open them. Of course there are the ones I open and go OH CRAP!

Quote from: ArnaudForestier on November 01, 2014, 11:58:17 AM
Personally, I reserve the 12th circle of hell for these morons.

I to hold a special place for these (I won't finish that)

H-K-J    I second your recommendation on "malwarebytes" free software. I have used it to clean up computers that were almost unusable because of the unknown junk ( adware ) you get when downloading or opening almost anything.

Paul, It's not just you------early morning hours are the worst-----sometimes I click on unread posts, and there are 4 or 5 in a row----took a while to recognize the junk----but someone is doing a good job of getting rid of them-----by the afternoon, they are gone----congrats to whom ever that is! H-J-K is right this site does much better then others I've seen.
Qdog

Oh, sorry guys - let me clarify.  It's not hitting my computer, I meant for this site.  I just meant it's probably a PITA for John, and I seem to recall from some site I used to visit quite a bit (might have been digitalpoint.com?) that there was some kind of software available to help out webmasters, automates spam detection and deletion?  Probably recalling wrong. 

Yeah, I should just ignore them, but can't seem to pass them up.  A perverse tendency to have to play whack-a-mole, I guess...  

Quote from: ArnaudForestier on November 01, 2014, 10:22:13 PM
  A perverse tendency to have to play whack-a-mole, I guess...  

LOL

Quote from: ArnaudForestier on November 01, 2014, 10:22:13 PM
Yeah, I should just ignore them, but can't seem to pass them up.  A perverse tendency to have to play whack-a-mole, I guess...  

Don't reply to them...please.

The admin, John, is on top of this quickly most of the time. If you must reply, send a heads-up to the moderator (John).

-Boofer-

Quote from: Boofer on November 05, 2014, 02:34:05 PM

Quote from: ArnaudForestier on November 01, 2014, 10:22:13 PM
Yeah, I should just ignore them, but can't seem to pass them up.  A perverse tendency to have to play whack-a-mole, I guess...  

Don't reply to them...please.

The admin, John, is on top of this quickly most of the time. If you must reply, send a heads-up to the moderator (John).

-Boofer-

Boofer - I don't reply to them.  By "whack a mole," I mean, I assiduously report them.  Thanks for the advice, however.  I wasn't sure what to do, as I've not been around here very long.

I'm a moderator on another forum and it is always a joy to ban and delete spam before anyone/too many people have read it.

Quote from: Schnecken Slayer on November 05, 2014, 06:14:41 PM
I'm a moderator on another forum and it is always a joy to ban and delete spam before anyone/too many people have read it.

Yeah, I would think so too, Schnecken.  I know John gets a lot of these so I try to flag them when I see them, so he doesn't have to work to find them.  Some involvement with forum management myself - and spammers are the worst.

We also have the luxury of having about ten moderators, some in the US and some in Oz - possibly some elsewhere, so the task is easier than what john has to do.

Yeah, that's my experience as well, Bill.  Tough job for John.  All the more reason I'm grateful for this site.  Without it, I'd be nowhere near where I am today as a cheesemaker.  Wonderful community of people.

OK, here's an example.  Currently there are a ton of fake usernames all using the same gmail address and spamming the forum.  This particular one has been regularly spamming the site for awhile.  I won't post the address here as I don't want to feed the diseased soul, if it isn't a bot.  A search on Stop Forum Spam yields that this bot (or clown, if it is a person) has something like 1000 usernames all using the same gmail.  Several IPs, with one in particular. 

I saw this on another site:

QuoteIf you run a forum look out for this script,
(C32) Stop Spammer Registration 1.3.2
This simple hook blocks users from registering if they have records onstopforumspam.com or projecthoneypot.org. This is an alternative hook to JGrucza's Forum Spammer IP & Email Check via stopforumspam . There are some differences between the two. First mainly being it can use cURL if allow_url_fopen is disabled when checking StopForumSpam's database. Secondly, It supports ProjectHoneyPot. Third, I needed a whitelist... so that is included. Lastly, It also can send you an email upon a user being blocked.

I installed it 5 days ago and so far it has blocked all spambot registrations, nearly 450 so far. Below is the log which shows that a high percentage of Spambots use Gmail!
You may also find it usefull to block their IP addresses listed below.

John, just an FYI, but perhaps this can help.