# forum spammers



## Yvonne G (Nov 19, 2009)

Like you, I've noticed the increase in new members who seem to know nothing about turtles and tortoises. 

Its very hard to be a moderator and NOT be the Moderator Nazi. How do I distinguish between a person who has joined to discuss or read about turtles and tortoises and one who just joined to get his name out on the internet?

Usually, when I suspect a spammer, its because they have a link in their signature such as b l u e t o o t h, or an actual link you're supposed to click on. What I've been doing is removing the link or the word from their signature line. But a couple of them have been savvy enough to put the link back.

I did a GOOGLE search on forum spammers and came up with this very good explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_spam

One of the thing the Wiki article tells me I can do is to search the username through GOOGLE. The couple of names that you've recently seen with a line through them showing they've been banned came up in the search as having joined numerous forums recently. So I was sure that they were spammers and I banned them. But I'm very uncomfortable in just arbitrarily banning new members. What if I make a mistake? 

One thing you all can do to help is DO NOT click on the link in their signature. But we have to err on the safe side. Please don't offend a REAL new member by accusing them of being a spammer. 

I've also noticed that the forum has been very slow lately. Moving from one screen to the next has almost been like the difference between dial-up and DSL. Don't know if that's because of all the spammers or not.

I'll try to keep on the ball and stay in front of this problem. I'm sorry it has to be this way. Makes it hard for all of us to have to deal with it.


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## Stephanie Logan (Nov 19, 2009)

Well I for one am glad you do it. Someone has to be the policeman here, and who better than the Food Goddess? 

Your reputation as an authority figure will surely intimidate those with dubious motivations for joining TFO, and those few who may be misjudged can always plead their case for reinstatement. Good people are always ready to forgive a mistake made with good intentions to protect the Tortoise Community.


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## Kadaan (Nov 19, 2009)

The sites aren't always "malicious" sites, they simply are trying to link to their site from as many places as possible. If google sees that there are 1000 unique sites (even if they're just forum posts) linking to the same place, they think it's popular and rank it higher in their search results. Unscrupulous advertising companies that advertise "increase your search rankings in major search engines!" sometimes use this tactic. Removing the links and banning them so they can't re-add them it is the best way to hinder them.

To stop them, Josh would have to add more steps to new user registration (such as Captcha, email confirmation required, or usergroups with new users only able to post in the introduction forum.)

They're a pain in the butt, and forum admins everywhere hate them .


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## Shelly (Nov 19, 2009)

Site doesn't seem slow to me. Everything seems to be loading as fast as it always has. At least for me, anyhow....


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## reptylefreek (Nov 19, 2009)

Yea I PM'ed Josh because there is another person I think is a spammer. If Josh wasn't the right person to tell let me know and I'll explain to you or Crazy1


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## Yvonne G (Nov 19, 2009)

I just recognized something else we can do to protect our forum from spammers.

A spammer evidently did a search engine search for his product, something to do with w a t e r f i l t e r s. We had a pretty old post in our archives that mentioned the B r i t a f i l t e r, and it must have come up in their search. He/she joined the forum, posted a response to the thread and left us a spam link in their signature.

Another spammer found our T-shirts in a search, joined the forum and added a spam link advertising their l a b e l f a c t o r y.


My suggestion is from now on, if we mention brand names, it might be a good idea to put spaces between the letters like I did in the above paragraph. I don't think this applies to reptile products, because we all use them and search for them every day.


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## dmmj (Nov 19, 2009)

I love I B M in fact my computer is an I B M clone, and I also enjoy P E P S I diet of course.


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## reptylefreek (Nov 20, 2009)

Im sick right now and I laughed out loud and it was horse and made me laugh even harder which made me cough and almost throw up. Thanks DMMJ lol


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## Stephanie Logan (Nov 20, 2009)

D i t t o ! (Snark, snark!)


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## Yvonne G (Nov 20, 2009)

dmmj said:


> I love I B M in fact my computer is an I B M clone, and I also enjoy P E P S I diet of course.



LOL! Now I have to watch you too?????


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## sammi (Nov 20, 2009)

reptylefreek said:


> Im sick right now and I laughed out loud and it was horse and made me laugh even harder which made me cough and almost throw up. Thanks DMMJ lol



AHAHAH! I laughed out loud when I read that, I've totally been there..but it was while I was working. Not so good. But still funny


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## dmmj (Nov 20, 2009)

emysemys said:


> dmmj said:
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> > I love I B M in fact my computer is an I B M clone, and I also enjoy P E P S I diet of course.
> ...



I have been found out, I am a sleeper spammer, I was waiting for the right moment to put my URL link into my signature and draw everyone to my malware site, but since my plan is ruined (years in the making I might add) I guess I won't now, sad day for sleeper spammers everywhere


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## Maggie Cummings (Nov 20, 2009)

dmmj said:


> emysemys said:
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> 
> > dmmj said:
> ...



Very funny! What a great sense of humor you have!!!


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## terracolson (Nov 20, 2009)

dmmj said:


> emysemys said:
> 
> 
> > dmmj said:
> ...



To cute!


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