spammers - abuse reporting

payless

I am aware of at least 3 other people who have reported this user

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/member.html?u=180675

nearly 50 posts over last few days all linking to the same website ( blogs and also pages of google ads ) spread over MSE forums- but not yet deleted

He seems to be using the thread titles for new pages on his own website! In fact I wonder if it so clever automatic system, as he even has pages named after some of the other spam threads that have been opened up here?? the links still full of related google ads

New users have linked thro' , some even thanked him.

We are told just to report spammers to abuse , not to get into posting about them, which just gets the threads bumped higher

As such a successful website ( and I assume profitable, looking at the incraesed number of affiliate links in posts/ emails ) perhaps more resources could be put towards stopping these in the bud , what happened to the board guides, have their powers been reduced ?

jamesd

Setting up ad farms to steal google rank from the original place isn't uncommon. The site isn't yet copying the content (unless it's doing it for crawlers only), which is another trick that's used to divert even more of the traffic.

soolin

We board guides are still here but can only remove posts on our own designated boards. Like everyone else when we seen spam on other boards we can only report it.

Browntoa

I've noticed it's a bit "hit and miss" think it depends who's dealing with the abuse, some seem stricter and delete stuff straight away, sometimes it seems to be left for ages

MarkyMarkD

It is very frustrating for "ordinary" users, when they spend their effort reporting spam (or other abusive stuff for that matter) and then it sits there for ages.

Does the site need some sort of prioritisation system which prioritises dealing with repeatedly reported posts or users?

Paul_Herring

soolin wrote: »

We board guides are still here but can only remove posts on our own designated boards. Like everyone else when we seen spam on other boards we can only report it.

In that case, board guides are ideal for idiots who try to ruin specific threads, but not ideal for spammers who run amok across boards - perhaps some board guides should get together and come up with some proposition to deal with this sort of thing, or a different reporting mechanism needs to be put in place to report *members* as opposed to *a member's post* (even if it's a referral by a board guide instead of a normal member report.)

This is not the first time I've seen a spammer join and all their posts have been spam - I've even indicated this in my abuse report (with link to either all posts concerned or to the member's page.) And of the times I've bothered to check up any of my abuse reports, the posts have still been there a day or so later - it's hardly fast.

(This is not intended as a dig to individual board guides, just the mechanism in general.)

Paul_Herring

And the same spammer, under a different name: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.html?searchid=9202984 - 4 posts around 9.30 am. Incidentally, why is the original spammer profile still active? (I'm presuming it's disabled however since they've changed names.)

payless

He's here again http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/member.html?u=182408

Paul_Herring

payless wrote: »

He's here again http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/member.html?u=182408

Hmm - they were only on 9 posts when I reported them this morning - up to 22 now.

I notice the previous time they quite successfully negated the spamming by adding the website URL to the filter list so their URL's came out as:

http://!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.com/spammy_page.html

:rotfl:

Poppycat

Can we had a BG for referral forum, TonyH is rarely here now and we get all sorts of people abusing the site or posting there business.

payless

The new website has the same person's name on bottom as before...