Spam on TC

Aloha,

Sorry about the recent spam on TC. TC's spam filters captures on average about 20 bogus users a day (that you never see) so these guys are slipping through some how. I've changed the filters a bit to see if we can hold them off.

Meanwhile:

Do:

Report it to me, via a PM or email. Include a link to the topic, if notto the post itself, and the username.

Don't:

Don't feed the spammers or rubberneck. Treat out-of-the-blue spam on TC like you do in your email -- just ignore it. Posting a comment to it only bumps it up to the top so more people end up clicking on it. If it's spam in an existing topic, again just ignore it. Posting replying to it or talking about it in a legit topic just further derails the conversation and creates a bigger distraction for people who are desperately trying to keep things on-topic.

Spam is hard to deal with. Tiki Central isn't optimized for removing spam once it's on the site. I wish it were a one-click-to-remove thing, but it's several steps on a per-post basis, and sometimes I can't get to it until hours after it's been posted. Moderators don't have the power to ban or delete users, so I'm the only one who can do that. Perhaps one day I can create a one-click-removes-all-posts-from-a-user button that would make it easier for me to remove them than it is for them to create them, but until then, we're just stuck with occasionally having to deal with a half-dozen or so spam posts on the site for a few hours.

One more thing: Due to the way I removed this round of spam, I might have missed some. If you see some spam still lingering, send me a link to it. Thanks.

Mahalo,

Hanford

So should we PM you directly about it, rather than using U-Moderate?

Yeah, PM. U-Moderate isn't working correctly at the moment :(

Well, obviously it's not working. You should have the power to boot not just single posts, but usernames, as the owner of the site. Or even better, track all the different aliases of that person to one source, and ban IT.

Damn, I thought this was news of some sort of TC promotion concerning my favorite canned meat.

Hanford will tackle these when he can. He's camping right now and I don't know if he has web access.

Not sure how the spam filters work, but I notice that some spammers are posting a few innocuous comments (e.g., "Wow, that's nice!"), first, to get their post count over 1 or 2. Maybe having a few "legit" posts helps them slip the filter?

Yeah, maybe we need some sorta filter that screens for empty, pointless, time wasting posts and...Uhm...

Never mind.

That would kick GROG off Woofy.

(Which is your whole intention......you bastard!!)

But their contributions to TC are so rich!

"It is so wonderful."

"I am highly favorable of that preceding information."

-Randy

If I were a hacker, and would see this a sport, I bet there would be a way to pay them back with equal coin, like flood their sites with bogus orders, or stupid messages...but that might start an all out war, and who needs that, and who has the time...

This has nothing whatsoever to do with ceramic owls.

LOCK IT!!

And now for something completely different...

OK, I see what the spammers are doing with the simple, "innocent" comments. It's not to get their post count up. It's to get their sig line shown - which is a set of links to whatever they're spam-selling (DVDs, lately).
Instead of creating a whole new thread, which can be quickly identified as spam and deleted, they sprinkle their little "I-like-it-so-much"-posts (with spam links in the sig) among legitimate, interesting threads.
For example, check all the posts of "ecompany8". If a user is banned, I assume their signature, including any links, disappears, even if their posts don't. Is that true?

I was just seeing what the spam reporting procedure was and figured I'd bump this as we have what I think are 3 spam threads in the main forum at the moment.

Got 'em woof. If you see any more and Hanford isn't around, feel free to send me a PM and I'll take care of them in the short term.

Thanks!

BUMP! Note the Do's and Don'ts in Hanford's first post.

Particularly for people participating in a couple recent threads from the latest spammer Maria369.

-Randy

Sorry guys, I've been doing a horrible job with spam on TC lately. I'll try to do better.

Most of the spam is coming from China, and I believe it is completely manual -- that is, it's not a bot, so CAPTCHAs (enter the word you see in the picture to post) are not going to fix it. I am considering blocking China IP addresses from posting, but I don't know if that would cripple a legitimate poster. Any thoughts on this?

Maybe make anyone from China who wants to join send you an email first asking to join.

I've never seen a person on here from China post anything relating to Tiki.

On 2010-01-26 15:06, tikiyaki wrote:
Maybe make anyone from China who wants to join send you an email first asking to join.

I've never seen a person on here from China post anything relating to Tiki.

Oh really? Then you must have forgotten about our long-lost friend Tiki Zippo!

Hanford, I'm a moderator on the other board I spend time on (explorer4x4) and we've also been dealing with a lot of Chinese spam recentlymore than a few. We are also comtemplating blocking the whole country.

One thing that we have going for us is that all moderators have the power to ban users. We have 30something moderators (it's a huge, busy board)and at any given time, there are mods online and able to delete and ban the spammer in minutes. Usually, they don't even have time to post a second time! :)

I recommend you give the ban stick to at least one of your moderators, to help you keep spam in check. The faster you get rid of it, the more it discourages them.

By the way, who ARE the moderators here? Is it a secret? I don't see any indication on the main page, or under any usernames. Maybe there aren't any, and it's just you flying solo? :-?

Thanks 4WDtiki.

China: Yeah, I have a few creative solutions for this, hopefully I can get it working this week.

Moderators: The moderators aren't exactly secret, but a long time ago it was suggested by members that I get rid of the moderator listings. They felt it gave special status. So I did it.

Moderators and banning: I wish I could give moderators access to banning, but at the moment it doesn't work that way. The power of banning comes with a lot of other powers, and at this point I don't know how long it would take me to re-work it.

More moderators: This is my fault. I've told several people I want to make them moderators but it takes some prep work on my part to let them know the rules, and how I do things around here, and I simply haven't made time for it. Perhaps this is the kick in the pants I need.

More soon, hopefully ....

~Hanford

Hanford, I see SPAM as an "invasion" and it bothers me. I always send a PM to TikiWahine and she quickly gets rid of it. But I don't know how much of a burden it is for her. Maybe you can spread the duties around to a few more people you can trust.

But sometimes the solution is worse than the SPAM. At "2.58 posts per day" I wouldn't want to have to enter a code for every post :)

Bumping this thread to get folks to rememeber what HL has asked us to do about spammers:

On 2009-08-01 13:15, hanford_lemoore wrote:
Aloha,

Do:

Report it to me, via a PM or email. Include a link to the topic, if not to the post itself, and the username.

I'll add that Grand Members have the U-mod button, as well, to alert HL to spam.

On 2009-08-01 13:15, hanford_lemoore also wrote:
Don't:

Don't feed the spammers or rubberneck. Treat out-of-the-blue spam on TC like you do in your email -- just ignore it. Posting a comment to it only bumps it up to the top so more people end up clicking on it. If it's spam in an existing topic, again just ignore it. Posting replying to it or talking about it in a legit topic just further derails the conversation and creates a bigger distraction for people who are desperately trying to keep things on-topic.

Mahalo,

Hanford

On 2010-02-10 09:19, Haole'akamai wrote:

I'll add that Grand Members have the U-mod button, as well, to alert HL to spam.

I believe that all members have the U-mod button, but a few months ago Hanford said it wasn't working correctly, so PMs are better.

Is or is isn't this post by tommyd3 spam?

Learn to pour Tiki cocktails with your iPhone

1. tommyd3 joined today and it's his only post.

2. A quick Google search shows he's apparently joined a few other boards just to make the same post.

The Virtual Pour App is real and there's a lot of info about it on that page but tommyd3 didn't bother to cut-n-paste any of it which is perhaps not surprising as The Virtual Pour is a product of The World Flair Association a company/site built around flair bartending which doesn't really deal much with the concept of taking ones time and doing a cocktail right.

will56 is a spammer and needs to be banned: http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=36028&forum=17&0

Same with randyy: http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=35716&forum=16&12

Another round of spam recently, so: Bump.

Hmmm, look what showed up in my email today. Anyone else hear from Catherine?

Hello,

My name is miss Catherine, a very simple young girl looking for a true friendship and after going through your profile at http://www.tikicentral.com   I believe you are kind of honest and maturity person with good sense of humor.

Please i will be glad in seeing a good response from you and also tell you more details about my self Including my pictures.

Thanks,
Yours new friend,
Catherine.

Yes, I received that. I figured Catherine was not real. When I meet people from this group, it's usually in person and they are wearing loud tiki print clothing and holding a drink in their hand! Cheers!

Here is what I got:

"Hello,

My name is miss Catherine, a very simple young girl looking for a true friendship and after going through your profile at http://www.tikicentral.com I believe you are kind of honest and maturity person with good sense of humor.

Please i will be glad in seeing a good response from you and also tell you more details about my self Including my pictures.

Thanks,
Yours new friend,
Catherine."

To Catherine I say:

I thought we had something special & even though I have no idea who you are
I thought you loved me for my "TikiCentral" sensibilities, but now I see you are just a slut!
I must ask you to go now and never call me again.

With wounded love, "Random Tiki Centralite"

I feel so left out,
I didn't get anything.
:(

Jeff(btd)

I guess I don't rate, I never got this either. :wink:

Okay now I'm a little pissed off at my new friend Catherine as well!! I thought I was the only special new friend.... How could she do that to me!!! :(
:D

Don't be sad guys, unless you are into illiterate sluts.

I like my SPAM Teriyaki-ed.

See Catherine. Told you they were smart asses.

I got the same sort of message. I immediately thought of "Peggy" from the credit card commercial simply because of the accent in the writing. Cathrine sounds like Russian girl lookink for someone.
Hmmm.

Catherine emailed me 3 or 4 times in 10 minutes. Too pushy for my tastes. No friend for you!

Opulence, i has it.

Aloha,

On 2011-12-06 10:44, Big Vic wrote:
I figured Catherine was not real.

Not real? But, She has a facebook page :) I thought it was a version of the Spanish Prisoner scam, but it's actually aRomance scam from Senegal.

Gotta surf this people! VERY FUNNY! The 3rd Annual Nigerian E-Mail Conference This is quite funny too

big legs, tight skirt, = bout to drive me outta my mind!

Catherine! You filthy tramp!

On 2011-12-14 15:54, Phillip Roberts wrote:
Aloha,

On 2011-12-06 10:44, Big Vic wrote:
I figured Catherine was not real.

Not real? But, She has a facebook page :) I thought it was a version of the Spanish Prisoner scam, but it's actually aRomance scam from Senegal.

Gotta surf this people! VERY FUNNY! The 3rd Annual Nigerian E-Mail Conference This is quite funny too

One of her FB friends is George Appaih, who looks exactly like her!

On 2011-12-06 12:53, bigtikidude wrote:
I feel so left out,
I didn't get anything.
:(

Jeff(btd)

you know she's really hard up now,
I finally got a couple e-mails from her finally.
:roll:

Jeff(btd)

Trailerpark is jealous. I guess I'm not 'tiki' enough to enjoy Catherines amorous advances.

On 2009-08-01 13:15, hanford_lemoore wrote:

Do:

Report it to me, via a PM or email. Include a link to the topic, if not to the post itself, and the username.

Don't:

Don't feed the spammers or rubberneck. Treat out-of-the-blue spam on TC like you do in your email -- just ignore it. Posting a comment to it only bumps it up to the top so more people end up clicking on it. If it's spam in an existing topic, again just ignore it. Posting replying to it or talking about it in a legit topic just further derails the conversation and creates a bigger distraction for people who are desperately trying to keep things on-topic.