"New" Form of Spam

[Digital Jedi]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

is this due to signatures or only to VMs to their own profile?
I moderate new users and VMs, so that should prevent this.

Both actually. Either/or.

Originally Posted by BirdOPrey5

I don't even allow visitor messages... seems like stuff best served by either PM or a real forum post IMO.

When people do spam the forum I always use the "Delete as Spam" feature to ban them and delete all posts in 1 step.

I'm much more fond of having a user list with at least one post per user, then a heafty list of banned and 0 post users. Just seems like a waste of database columns. But like I said, I find that delete link I added to the profiles immensely satisfying. I have a no tolerance policy when to comes to link spamming. I don't even want their information on my board. Which is kind of funny, because I'll let people go off topic all the live long day. Just don't try to sell me water filters! <twitch>

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I forgot about the other, more advanced form of spam I've been seeing lately. Never used to run into it before this year, but this one seems to be some form of preprogrammed responses to familiar titles. Like, I had posted an MSNBC review of the Aliens Vs Predator video game, so the post refrences the title and posts a "prerecorded" message using the title and generic info about the genre. The same user would go around posting the same style messaged in poor english on several threads, following the same MO. Like the one I deleted today:

Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction and horror movie that spanning several media. It is the good movie about alien and predators fight. The character used in this movie is very nice creation. Look like actually aliens in the movie. According to me very nice movie and i like it.

Or like the one posted in a review titled "Crisis -> Farcry 2" in the forum title "PC Gaming":

Crisis Farcry 2 is one of my favorite pc game. i like to play all kind of game. all of you have such a great knowledge about Pc games. It is very helpful and interesting for every one.

Or a thread about Act Raiser, where I briefly mention Soul Reaver, and we get these two replies two years later:

I am very big fan of games. In some ways Act Raiser look same as Soul Re aver. Act Raiser has similar aspects to that of Soul Re aver. In Act Raiser sound of game is same as Soul Re aver. The problem in Act Raiser is that you do not have invulnerability per say, though you can not die. In that game your cops and villages can be destroyed, meaning you have to retract back and find a way to recover your villages back up.

Nice information given by you, it is very helpful and interesting for every one who want to about this game. ActRaiser is an action, adventure/Sims game. ActRaiser's weapon-wielding, platform-jumping sequences are pretty straightforward stuff.

And of course, their sigs had links to auto-insurance and more water filters. The posts make just enough references to the forum title, the thread title and one reference to something in the thread to try and come off legitimate and maybe even bypass a lot of administrators' standards on spamming.