We seem to have a lot of spammers all of a sudden

[{Kat}]

What does a person do when they see a lot of spammers? I've been reporting them. How else could the members help? Thank you so much!

[ParrotletsRock]

I don't know... I have been reporting this clowns posts for the last 1/2 hour!! Glad I am not a mod today... what a mess they have to clean up!!

[{Kat}]

I know! It is so hard on the mods. I recall when I was a mod for a forum, and the place became overrun. I could not handle it and had to step down. I'm talking about every 10 minutes a new spammer signing up, and going CRAZY!

Over on the Linnie forum they have to approve your first post, and you have to make 55 before you can post in certain sections. I wish we could do that here, and I certainly wish I could have had that feature at the forum I was mod at. *DEEP SIGH*

[enborgle]

Thanks for trying to help, guys - we REALLY appreciate it when you report inappropriate posts!!!

We do have a handy button that allows us with one click to ban someone and remove ALL their posts so we don't have to go through them all individually, but there certainly have been a lot of them lately!

[ParrotletsRock]

Thanks... I asked in one of my spam reports if each post had to be reported seperatly... I guess that means no....lol. Sure makes it a lot easier to know you can miss a few and it will still be taken care of!!

[{Kat}]

Oh, that is good! I wondered too...

[jodeg]

Thanks for your help, everyone! These silly people just won't give up!

What I've been doing a lot the last few weeks is checking the newest member's profile page, (suggested by Enborgle) and the spammers have been putting links to all kinds of goofy stuff in their signature! I delete the links and send them a polite warning message. So far, none of these people have posted or come back.

I was talking to my husband about why these idiots would target a nice little Parrotlet forum, and he said perhaps these are people hired by spammers to get the website, spam, porn, whatever, on as many sites as possible, and they are paid by the number of forums they join. Interesting idea.

Thanks again for all your help! Leigh and I are on and off the site during the day, but we're not on constantly, so your help is much appreciated!

[{Kat}]

Is there any way to "lock" the forum to new members until they've posted say at least once, but five times would be better? If those posts needed mod approval it might help. (Totally ignorant if our little forum has that as an option though.)

[ParrotletsRock]

I just don't understand spammers... they cannot possibly think they will make any money by posting spam on a little bird forum... it's just over my head!!

[jodeg]

ParrotletsRock - I know! I agree totally!

Kat - I don't think we have a feature like that. Guess we'll just have to keep a close watch and depend on our wonderful members' help!

[Jinx n Noodle]

Well, you guys must be doing a great job because I haven't seen any spam:)

[ParrotletsRock]

Jinx and Noodle... it was terrible this morning... there were dozens of spam posts!!

[jodeg]

From what everyone is saying, guess I wasn't on line in time to help -- so sorry!

These darn spammers!

[{Kat}]

No, no you've done an excellent job! It is just when they find that there is not a mod on at every hour with a specific forum they spam it like mad! Trying to keep up is very, very difficult I know from personal experience.

[jodeg]

I've been on here about 40 minutes and have banned 3 of them! Darn spammers - they're really after us today!

I'll be on later tonight, about 9 p.m. Central time, but it's almost time for Human Target!! We never miss it! Will check in later, please bear with us in the meantime; we'll get them as fast as we can!

[Dave]

I've added some measures to help slow these spammers down. This is an attack on many websites. Talk Budgies and Talk Parrots are also getting hit hard. And I was talking with some other forum owners and they too are getting killed with spam. So the good news is the spammers are not just targeting us. :)

[enborgle]

Thanks Dave!

[Evelyn]

I must be dumb, I have not seen any, are they posting on the forums or sending post in a private message?

[enborgle]

They're posting in the forums but they're also signing up false accounts like crazy. I have spent close to 2 hours here today banning and deleting.

[jodeg]

Thanks, Dave. Can you also blow up the spammers' computers? Okay, that'd be great!

Thanks for all your hard work, Leigh. I've been off and on all day, and every time, I ban 2 or 3, but you handled the brunt of it! GREAT MODERATING!!

[Callie]

I had this problem on my own site, and I finally had to do membership by approval. That gives me a chance to look at each individual new member profile and decide what I want to do. Spammers have a lot of things in common and not all of them are actually human! With MBA, at least I can sleep at night, knowing I'm not going to have a mess to clean up in the morning. :D

[Sondra]

Mod's just a hint and don't know as it will work for you but the forum (goat) that I am Admin on, first they have to send us an email telling abt their goats (birds) where they live (area like Texas) before they are approved then I also use http://www.stopforumspam.com/search.php?q=daddy2eleven@gmail.com
type in their IP address and sometimes their screen names or email addy then block or reject all that come up in this. Really really helps .

[Kayla]

Why on earth would someone intentionally spam a forum like this? I moderate on a forum with over 4,000 active users and I don't think we get as much spam as you guys seem to be!

What kinds of posts are they making? Advertisements, pointless, repeating things, etc?

[jodeg]

They mostly post advertising stuff, very little porn. Lately we've been getting spammers who sign up and put advertising links in their signature. I send them a warning pm and tell them we're happy for them to participate in the forum, but NO advertising. We usually don't hear from them again!

And no, I have no idea either why they bother our little P'let forum! I can't imagine how those ads EVER work!

[ParrotletsRock]

Well it sure dosn't make me wanna run out and buy what they are selling ... makes me wanna plant my little size seven up their..... welll ...um...that's another story....lol