Good grief. I just saw the forums and reported no fewer than twenty-one Spam threads. And I'm still not sure I got them all. One loses the will to live after a while. My respect for the poor long-suffering admins (who are fighting this tidal wave stemming from whatever urine-poor excuses for human beings think that inflicting this is somehow not unacceptable) is undiminished and maybe even increased - dealing with this over and over and over must be will-sapping. By thunder it is apparent that some form of filtering tech solution needs to be found. Every success to whatever IT experts are working on that.
These "spambots" are getting out of control.
Sort:
RalphHayward wrote:
My respect for the poor long-suffering admins (who are fighting this tidal wave stemming from whatever urine-poor excuses for human beings think that inflicting this is somehow not unacceptable) is undiminished and maybe even increased - dealing with this over and over and over must be will-sapping.
All the more reason to restrict new accounts from creating threads, until they've successfully passed through a provisional stage, IMO.
At the moment, all the spam seems to be coming from new accounts that begin spamming a minute or two after account creation.
Have users be required to play 20 rated games and pass a 72-hour wait before being allowed to post in the forums - and I'm betting 95% of the spam, in its current form, will be gone ...
Maybe the final 5% will persist from extremely motivated spammers - but then that will still be a victory - the mods would only have to deal with that last remaining 5%.
delcai007 wrote:
manudude02 wrote:
If it can be reliably determined to be a bot...
There is zero reason to believe [the spammers] are bots.
If the spammers are bots, then the spammers could be slowed by using CAPTCHAs (see an example below). If the spammers are not bots, then CAPTCHAs would just be a nuisance for legitimate users...
Anybody know a member or staff that could help with this stupid spambot problem?
Jul 24, 2025
0
#209
If it was that simple, this thread would not exist. Scroll up, check out the conversation: the mods are doing the best they can with limited tools. Better tools are in the works.
What better tools? Are we just sitting here doing nothing to help? We need to block and report all we can to destroy these monsters!
Jul 24, 2025
0
#211
MaetsNori wrote:
RalphHayward wrote:
My respect for the poor long-suffering admins (who are fighting this tidal wave stemming from whatever urine-poor excuses for human beings think that inflicting this is somehow not unacceptable) is undiminished and maybe even increased - dealing with this over and over and over must be will-sapping.
All the more reason to restrict new accounts from creating threads, until they've successfully passed through a provisional stage, IMO.
At the moment, all the spam seems to be coming from new accounts that begin spamming a minute or two after account creation.
Have users be required to play 20 rated games and pass a 72-hour wait before being allowed to post in the forums - and I'm betting 95% of the spam, in its current form, will be gone ...
Maybe the final 5% will persist from extremely motivated spammers - but then that will still be a victory - the mods would only have to deal with that last remaining 5%.
?
Jul 25, 2025
0
#215
difficult to say, but it could very well be just one person doing most of them
SacrificePawnAlways wrote:
I wonder why all of the ‘spambots’ are from India. Weird
exactly!
delcai007 wrote:
difficult to say, but it could very well be just one person doing most of them
one person? Wow. If so, so many usernames! It took me an hour finding this username
Jul 25, 2025
0
#218
delcai007 wrote:
difficult to say, but it could very well be just one person doing most of them
That's unlikely
Jul 25, 2025
0
#219
blackmambas1314 wrote:
Anybody know a member or staff that could help with this stupid spambot problem?
Staff have been aware and there are plans to mitigate the amount of spam before it gets posted.
Hmm... not just to complain, I'm curious. There are at least a dozen spam threads on display right now, three of them that I reported an hour ago. Are there times when no moderators at all are active???
Probably. The mods are human so ... sometimes they're either sleeping or busy with their lives ...
All the more reason why they shouldn't be the first line of defense, IMO. Especially if spam accounts (and spam content) can be auto-generated.
how do you know if they are human?
We'd either need automated/AI mods that can catch and scrub away spam without human involvement needed - or provisional limitations for newer accounts ...