Spam, Shitposting and Flamewars Discussion

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

So recently I've been noticing that the Forum's spam filter has been falling down on the job. For the last year I've barely noticed any spam/inflammatory threads but recently (past 2 months or so) I've seen a noticable increase in spam and threads obviously created to inflame. 

 

Additionally, I've noticed that these threads tend to be created by what seem to be "burner" accounts - that is, accounts that only make one post - that thread and never reply to it, or any other thread for that matter.

 

Any ideas why this might be? @colonel_mortis @PCGuy_5960

[UncleTHICC]

yo yo fans

fams* fucking autocorrect

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, UncleTHICC said:

fams* fucking autocorrect

fucking autocorrect or fucking autocorrect

 

/joke

[Christophe Corazza]

Indeed, I have also noticed an increase in spam related threads. Although, not necessarily only ones with the sole purpose of starting a flame war, but also your regular spam posts as well.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, Christophe Corazza said:

Indeed, I have also noticed an increase in spam related threads. Although, not necessarily only ones with the sole purpose of starting a flame war, but also your regular spam posts as well.

Yeah, the flamewar stuff is as old as time but I don't think the filter is as good at catching and killing it as it used to be for some reason 

[colonel_mortis]

Topics like the one you mentioned me in today are not and have never been caught by any spam filter - there is absolutely no way that we could automatically catch posts like that. Please just report the first post of topics like that to bring it to our attention, and it will be dealt with as appropriate.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, colonel_mortis said:

Topics like the one you mentioned me in today are not and have never been caught by any spam filter - there is absolutely no way that we could automatically catch posts like that. Please just report the first post of topics like that to bring it to our attention, and it will be dealt with as appropriate.

Ah, didn't know that. Still I feel like they stay up for hours and hours not like they used to

[colonel_mortis]

2 minutes ago, orbitalbuzzsaw said:

Ah, didn't know that. Still I feel like they stay up for hours and hours not like they used to

That topic has been up for 90 minutes, and the first report was only received 25 minutes ago. Please report things! We can't monitor everything that is posted, so we rely on your reports to bring things like this to our attention.

25 minutes for a non-bot-spam topic is reasonable IMO.

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, colonel_mortis said:

That topic has been up for 90 minutes, and the first report was only received 25 minutes ago. Please report things! We can't monitor everything that is posted, so we rely on your reports to bring things like this to our attention.

25 minutes for a non-bot-spam topic is reasonable IMO.

Yes, but in my experience 30min is unusually quick due to the fact that that thread got a discussion on spam going. Good advice though, might want to get that put on top of the forum guidelines

[3 Lions]

I'll say this. I have noticed an increase in people advertising fake companies/services, this concerns me as criminals are using this forum as a way to lure people into dangerous scams. Obviously when I see any posts like that I report it and leave a comment basically calling them out, the post does get taken down and the account does get banned but I think there should be something that stops criminals from making accounts. Probably when the request for the new account is seen by the server it should do background checks to see if the user is linked with fraud, admittedly I wouldn't know how you'd implement a system like this but something has to be done I'm afraid or else one day an innocent user on this forum will be scammed by a criminal advertising a false company or service. 

Edited July 14, 2018 by LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

1 minute ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

something has to be done I'm afraid or else one day an innocent user on this forum will be scammed by a criminal advertising a false company or service. 

 

Unfortunately, someone almost certainly has been already despite the general internet savviness of this forum

[colonel_mortis]

3 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

I'll say this. I have noticed an increase in people people advertising fake companies/services, this concerns me as criminals are using this forum as a way to lure people into dangerous scams. Obviously when I see any posts like that I report it and leave a comment basically calling them out, the post does get taken down and the account does get banned but I think there should be something that stops criminals from making accounts. Probably when the request for the new account is seen by the server it should do background checks to see if the user is linked with fraud, admittedly I wouldn't know how you'd implement a system like this but something has to be done I'm afraid or else one day an innocent user on this forum will be scammed by a criminal advertising a false company or service. 

We already use a third party spam service to check whether users are known spammers, but a lot of the spam that we see uses a brand new gmail email and is posted from a VPN, which makes it very difficult to filter algorithmically. We do maintain a blacklist of URLs that are associated with spam, and posts containing those are automatically removed, but the sites being advertised changes regularly.

[3 Lions]

14 minutes ago, colonel_mortis said:

We already use a third party spam service to check whether users are known spammers, but a lot of the spam that we see uses a brand new gmail email and is posted from a VPN, which makes it very difficult to filter algorithmically. We do maintain a blacklist of URLs that are associated with spam, and posts containing those are automatically removed, but the sites being advertised changes regularly.

While I'm glad to hear that you do keep a list of rogue companies, I'm wanting a better defence system in place when the account is still in it's set-up stage. Like I said earlier with the current sign-up system a criminal can set-up an account and start advertising his false company/service in next to no time at all, if a better defence system was in place you could stop them from progressing any further and permanently suspend the account there and then. 

Edited July 14, 2018 by LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo

[Razor Blade]

The spam filters and such probably are way more effective against bots. Seems like the most recent influx are human in some way...even if they're just signing up and copy/pasting something... Though you could put something in place to limit someone from posting a new topic for a time, it wouldn't be very inviting as there are a lot of people that sign up mainly to post about an issue they're having.

 

I used to be a moderator on a forum. While there are usually many of the mods and admins that keep the forum clean and up to standards, forums that are more active become exponentially more difficult to police. If something looks questionable just report it. I don't know if it works the same way here but for the forum I was a mod on, the report opened a topic in a staff forum that allowed all the mods and admins to see the details of the report and a link to where the post is. This way any staff online can take care of it and if need be, discuss how to proceed, or issue warnings or bans. But I'm sure when you report something, it WILL be seen by the forum staff.

[UncleTHICC]

I understand this is a very spamy incident but to demand some "defense" against false claims is ridiculous. Just report them if it makes sense to the moderator they'll hopefully terminate the account not to be rude because most butthurt people will look at my reply and say "hey he's mean what a pee pee head" And perhaps not like that but in a very immature way. Also someone on the thread that got banned said that he's been doing this shit for years, number 1. how did he find out, number 2 that means he been doing this for years wtf is he devoted is entire life to amd lol. 

 

21 hours ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

I'm wanting a better defence system in place when the account is still in it's set-up stage.

report them don't make them do more hours off html coding and css that shit takes time. i hate to be rude but it has to be said. I am a website developer a game developer and I code just as much as you spend on your lazy gaming. I like gaming though sorry. But it takes work. Theres a report button for a reason. Otherwise every other website would have fucking fingerprint id, face id, 10 passwords and all this shit theres a reason why there is admins, moderators and the report button.

[colonel_mortis]

4 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

The spam filters and such probably are way more effective against bots. Seems like the most recent influx are human in some way...even if they're just signing up and copy/pasting something... Though you could put something in place to limit someone from posting a new topic for a time, it wouldn't be very inviting as there are a lot of people that sign up mainly to post about an issue they're having.

Yup - as far as I have been able to tell, everything that gets posted on this site is posted by a person.

We won't prevent new users from creating new topics, because the vast majority of users register to post a topic (usually either troubleshooting or new build planning).

4 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

I used to be a moderator on a forum. While there are usually many of the mods and admins that keep the forum clean and up to standards, forums that are more active become exponentially more difficult to police. If something looks questionable just report it. I don't know if it works the same way here but for the forum I was a mod on, the report opened a topic in a staff forum that allowed all the mods and admins to see the details of the report and a link to where the post is. This way any staff online can take care of it and if need be, discuss how to proceed, or issue warnings or bans. But I'm sure when you report something, it WILL be seen by the forum staff.

Exactly. There are only a handful of moderators who are in active service at the moment, and only a couple are online at a time. With new posts being made at a rate of multiple per minute, there is no way that we can read everything, so we rely very heavily on reports. It is fairly uncommon that anything other than topic moves are performed without a report.

[UncleTHICC]

Precisely and theres a dude that thinks you can all deal with that.

I like people that take responsibility for there own needs and not asking other people to do it for them 

[3 Lions]

21 hours ago, UncleTHICC said:

-snip-

I am talking about people who advertise false companies and services. 

[UncleTHICC]

8 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

28 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

I'm wanting a better defence system in place when the account is still in it's set-up stage.

 

Yeah and I'm talking about how you expect them to make this set in place and you demand it like you own the site

[3 Lions]

10 minutes ago, UncleTHICC said:

Yeah and I'm talking about how you expect them to make this set in place and you demand it like you own the site

Something has to done I'm afraid, the current sign-up system is far too easy for criminals to get around. I'm only wanting the best for the users of this forum, you do understand this. Right? 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

17 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

Something has to done I'm afraid, the current sign-up system is far too easy for criminals to get around. I'm only wanting the best for the users of this forum, you do understand this. Right? 

Couldn't agree with you more

[UncleTHICC]

All your doing is making an inconvenience. I recommend a anti-bot system but not this. It doesn't matter how much more "defense" there is on the sign up screen there will always be scammers the best you can do is get rid of them not making it harder for everyone else. Some people may agree with you but tons with not as well just let it go and take out the accounts of the people who want to make it harder for us to enjoy this website. Simple as that.

 

Apologies for being rude and perhaps you think I don't mean it but now that I see that your trying to be reasonable I am trying to settle down. But I still stand next to what i said and i kindly disagree.

 

and its only this site right? Apparently.

 

There are other ways of dealing of such a situation, without making it harder for people it sign up.

 

And if you believe this is "must have" which you don't approve for any other site then what do we do? Hmmm? Your just gonna let the admin decide? If you want to make changes be specific and give reason. 

[colonel_mortis]

Please don't make multiple consecutive posts - collect all your ideas into one coherent post instead.

30 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

Something has to done I'm afraid, the current sign-up system is far too easy for criminals to get around. I'm only wanting the best for the users of this forum, you do understand this. Right? 

Actively malicious content is posted very rarely on this site, and is usually removed pretty quickly. The problem is, as I alluded to in my earlier post, there is very little that we can do to filter out malicious users prior to them posting, because they use untraceable IP addresses and new email addresses. As great as it would be, we can't just magically detect if a user is planning to post something malicious or not, and we therefore can't do anything about it.

[UncleTHICC]

So do you at least agree with me ( and also thank you for the advice )

 

Or am I just crazy?

[colonel_mortis]

9 minutes ago, UncleTHICC said:

So do you at least agree with me ( and also thank you for the advice )

 

Or am I just crazy?

If what you're saying is that preventing spam as discussed above is impractical then yes, I agree.