Black Magic spammers

torbrex

I see they are getting through the defenses again, time for an update to your electric fence I think :mad:

redfox

reported this one

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/member.php?u=2451173

at 4.15pm and all the posts (and the user) are still there nearly 4 hours later :eek:

Isn't there anybody in MSE covering clearing the spam? Obviously it's not a priority for them at weekends which is pretty ridiculous for a forum of this size. (shakes head)

Upsidedown_Bear

Indeed - this is still around after nearly 4 hours.

ETA
redfox beat me to it :dance:

redfox

Upsidedown_Bear wrote: »

Indeed - this is still around after nearly 4 hours.

and believe it or not the spammer and some posts are still there at 10pm some 6 hours later :eek:

Upsidedown_Bear

redfox wrote: »

and believe it or not the spammer and some posts are still there at 10pm some 6 hours later :eek:

Just checked - all gone

redfox

Upsidedown_Bear wrote: »

Just checked - all gone

Finally!

torbrex

it was not so much the posts themselves that bothered me, it was the fact that for the second day in a row they got through

Browntoa

They seem to post an initial nonsense post like

Ffgghhhhh

Then go back and edit in the black magic rubbish in , not sure if that is how they are beating the spam filter

Former_MSE_Andrea

Thanks everyone.

We know that's a technique they use and it's being factored into projects.

I believe that's the first of its kind in a while though.

We'll check which boards the spam was on and see if we need more board guide coverage on them.

Thank you!

grumbler

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

...it's being factored into projects.

...

We'll check which boards the spam was on and see if we need more board guide coverage on them....

May I bump my old suggestion that is far less sophisticated, but can be very effective?

grumbler wrote: »

Several times I suggested to add small buttons to all threads in the board view (possibly, in some sort of a popup when you point to the thread), that would make killing obvious spam much easier.

Button can be permanent or, ideally, hidden and show only when pointing to a thread - like this is done in Hotmail. Can it be added to the first post preview callout?

Personally, I stopped participating in killing automated spam long time ago because it's far too laborious.

torbrex

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

Thanks everyone.

We know that's a technique they use and it's being factored into projects.

I believe that's the first of its kind in a while though.

We'll check which boards the spam was on and see if we need more board guide coverage on them.

Thank you!

Please remember that removal of this kind of spam is not the issue, STOPPING this kind of spam dead in its tracks is what is needed.
20 spam posts can be removed but unless the spammer is stopped straight away they will just carry on, they only care about posting, not how long the posts stay up.