Requesting an Admin to handle a spam post

[JoeWinograd]

https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=261743#p261743

Thanks much! Regards, Joe

[kczx3]

Seconded

[JoeWinograd]

I see that the post has already been deleted...thanks for the swift action! I hope that the user was banned, too (war, if I recollect right). Regards, Joe

[Nextron]

User is banned. But with 7 posts full of quotes triggering e-mail notifications, you may still get some delayed ones.

[JoeWinograd]

Thanks for the prompt action, Nextron...much appreciated! Regards, Joe

[Sojiro84]

For a quick moment there I thought my account was hacked. Forum bug? I can't remember ever subscribing to any notifications for any topic.

[Nextron]

More like an exploit of a legit feature. When you're quoted you will get a notification. The spam posts just add a quote tag for as many user names as is possible, regardless of whether you've posted in those topics.

[JoeWinograd]

Hi Nextron,
I'm sure you know that the spammer has moved on from posting as war to peace_. Obviously, someone who has nothing better to do with his/her time and thinks it's fine to waste the time of others. I'll never understand this absurd behavior. Thanks for your help in minimizing the impact on our community. Regards, Joe

[JoeWinograd]

Now the jerk is back as love_.

[gregster]

Perhaps it's time to bring the user group "Spam Officer" back... two of the five people in this group are moderators anyway (redundancy), two of the other three are not really active recently. (Many moderators from "the early days" of AHK aren't active anymore, either.)

[Nextron]

Spam Officer are already here: https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/memberlist.php?mode=group&g=10

I think a big problem is that -by default- phpBB doesn't give much options to prevent/combat this behavior, which forces the use of modifications, which can be cause problems with updates of the forum itself.

[sinkfaze]

Perhaps it's time to bring the user group "Spam Officer" back...

It never went away.

At any rate, it doesn't matter what a team member's title is, the fact is that we're all people volunteering our time to moderate the forums. If you feel that you would make a suitable Spam Officer contact one of the mods and we will discuss.

[gregster]

Spam Officer are already here: https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/memberlist.php?mode=group&g=10

I think a big problem is that -by default- phpBB doesn't give much options to prevent/combat this behavior, which forces the use of modifications, which can be cause problems with updates of the forum itself.

Yeah, but this group is a carry-over from the old forum. And I guess a moderator can already do (and more) what a Spam Officer can do. So, all three remaining Spam Officers aren't active much these days.

If you feel that you would make a suitable Spam Officer contact one of the mods and we will discuss.

The question is, do we need people - or could we make good use of people? Then I would ask people that are around for some time and that are still around regularly. If we need people, I would be willing to help - but I am not keen on it. There are enough suitable candidates, I believe.

At any rate, it doesn't matter what a team member's title is, the fact is that we're all people volunteering our time to moderate the forums.

My guess is that Spam Officers are more restricted in their rights than moderators (but you tell me). If not, I don't know why it was introduced as an own group...

[real_Napster]

Isn‘t there an Option to disable those spam notification Mails on user side?
I didn‘t find an Option to disable mail notifications if my Account was Quoted?

If it‘s Not possible i‘m thinking about to remove my Account or link a blank Mail address in my Account...
It‘s really annoying to receive all those spam Mails..

[Nextron]

My guess is that Spam Officers are more restricted in their rights than moderators (but you tell me). If not, I don't know why it was introduced as an own group...

Correct.

Isn‘t there an Option to disable those spam notification Mails on user side?

Look here: https://www.autohotkey.com/boards/ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options
"Someone quotes you in a post"

[real_Napster]

Thanks!

[RussellJ]

Thirded.

I'd gotten a couple dozen of these "Topic reply notifications" earlier today. First from war, then peace, then love, and most recently from angel.

Thankfully, it looks like it may have stopped.

Thanks to the moderators and/or others who (as evidenced by this thread, and by the now-deleted comment spam) have worked hard to take care of this. It is much appreciated!

Now the jerk is back as love_.

Seconded

[SL5]

If you want someone more for deleting spam. I will do it

[JoeWinograd]

The volume of "because XXXXXX quoted you in the topic" emails is making the forum practically unusable. The signal-to-noise ratio in emails is making it very difficult to find the questions where our members really need help.

Nextron mentioned that it's "an exploit of a legit feature". If that's the whole reason for all the spam, can we shut down that feature? The "quoted you" aspect is not really that important, imo. It's fine to simply quote the text, with either quotes, such as:

an exploit of a legit feature

or the simple greater than sign, a standard method in many forums/groups (and email), such as:

> an exploit of a legit feature

So, is it possible to kill the "quoted you" feature, at least until we find a better way to stop this bad actor? Thanks, Joe

[nnnik]

Changing our existing defenses against spammers to handle this kid is easier than shutting down those features. tank is slowly adding more defensive rules - they appear to be effective. It might take some time until the last e-Mails go in.