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View Full Version : Massive Spam Flood



norahc
03-31-2013, 03:32 PM
I'm sure we've all noticed a massive increase in the amount of spam posts here, but today topped it. 5 pages of new posts in less than 24 hours, and 4 of them were spam. Given that these are all new members who are signing up just to spam us, I would like to toss out a couple of options for Tom and Luke to think about.

1) Place new members on "moderator preview" where all their initial posts must be approved before being visible to general membership
2) Install the StopForumSpam (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1938623) vBulletin plugin
3) Increase forum staff to help deal with the problem
4) Start blocking IP addresses of known spammers

While we will never be able to get rid of all spammers and their posts, it would be nice to be able to visit here without being deluged by it. We should be able to keep it to a manageable level so it doesn't adversely affect our experience here.

lukewind2
03-31-2013, 04:21 PM
I'm sure we've all noticed a massive increase in the amount of spam posts here, but today topped it. 5 pages of new posts in less than 24 hours, and 4 of them were spam. Given that these are all new members who are signing up just to spam us, I would like to toss out a couple of options for Tom and Luke to think about.

1) Place new members on "moderator preview" where all their initial posts must be approved before being visible to general membership
2) Install the StopForumSpam (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1938623) vBulletin plugin
3) Increase forum staff to help deal with the problem
4) Start blocking IP addresses of known spammers

While we will never be able to get rid of all spammers and their posts, it would be nice to be able to visit here without being deluged by it. We should be able to keep it to a manageable level so it doesn't adversely affect our experience here.

I am already working on getting the spam under control, I am waiting on a new version of the servers spam software which will be ready this week. It's a custom VBulletin plugin and should help a lot, in the mean time I will continue to get rid of the spam within a few hours of posting.

MP Gunther
04-01-2013, 07:26 PM
Thank you for bringing it up and Thank You very much lukewind for addressing the problem

lukewind2
04-01-2013, 07:32 PM
The new spam plugin has been installed and in a couple hours of use has already denied nearly 400 spam attempts. From now on the large spam attacks will be few and far between. A few here and there will get through but everything should be way more manageable now.

Thanks
Lucas

norahc
04-02-2013, 08:33 AM
The new spam plugin has been installed and in a couple hours of use has already denied nearly 400 spam attempts. From now on the large spam attacks will be few and far between. A few here and there will get through but everything should be way more manageable now.

Thanks
Lucas
Thank you...that's all I was asking for.

funkymonkey1111
04-24-2013, 08:54 AM
Just remember, when the spam hits an active thread they we're emailed the spam. I've had to make the decision to unsubscribe to all active threads to stop this.

lukewind2
04-24-2013, 07:09 PM
Just remember, when the spam hits an active thread they we're emailed the spam. I've had to make the decision to unsubscribe to all active threads to stop this.

The spam has already been taken care of, however there is no way to ever stop 100% of it. Currently less then 1 spam post is getting through the filters each day, which is pretty good so I would imagine you can resub to threads if you like as you will not get so many emails anymore. As time goes by the filter will only get better, but so do the spammers at finding ways around them lol.

norahc
04-25-2013, 01:05 PM
The spam has already been taken care of, however there is no way to ever stop 100% of it. Currently less then 1 spam post is getting through the filters each day, which is pretty good so I would imagine you can resub to threads if you like as you will not get so many emails anymore. As time goes by the filter will only get better, but so do the spammers at finding ways around them lol.
Agreed, and I've noticed a drastic reduction in the amount of spam since the plug in was installed. Thanks again!