talkmagic.co.uk

I hate to ask for this but the bots seem to be increasing in number and persistence recently.

I forget the process as it was awhile ago I signed up, but would it not be possible to have new members have to click an activation link and wait for a mod to confirm their new account before they can start spamming the forum?

Good idea, Mandrake must be getting sick and tired of having to delete all the bots posts.

Whoever codes these bots needs sticking in a zig zag box that is malfunctioning and let us lot have our wicked way with them.

Cheers chaps, the idea has been considered several times but, as you probably suspect, needs quite a bit of 24/7 attention to ensure new members aren't kept waiting too long. Registration these days requires interpretation and entry of a scrambled alpha-numeric code so there's some human involvement required. Of course, a human could request and be granted access and then spam the place llike the clappers after that. I'm told that creating forum registrations is big business these days, people register and then sell those registrations to the spammers.

jim ferguson wrote:This is getting really bloody annoying now

hds02115 wrote:Here here! There really needs to be a report button somewhere on here that instantly e-mails admin when something like this happens so they can swoop in and eradicate the problem.

kry10 wrote:Or an ignore option, so, we can have the posts not show when we go through new posts.

I share your frustration folks, although there isn’t a report button as such, a PM will serve the same purpose. Response won’t be immediate (I may be off doing something very non-magical!) but we’ll get there asap. As always, best response is to ignore them and not post comments as it tends to make it more difficult to spot the spammers if there are several posts after their initial one.

This was not meant to be in anyway a lac k of appreciation for what you do Mr Mandrake, I think for many of us it is more a case of "look at the mess Mandrake is going to have to tidy up now because of this idiot".

One small question for Mandrake, are you the only one who has the power to trawl through the posts and delete the spammers junk, or, is there others ?

If not, I know for sure, there would be people more than willing to help out, myself included (I know that I am relatively new here, but, I feel like this is my second home and want to help in any way to keep it clean of any junk that we have been subjected to the past few days), so, just a little thought.

As a side note, I admire the hard work you do removing the rubbish we tend to get from time to time (clap, clap)

I just noticed that a second spammer of the day has spued c*** (not the best) over the forum, this time, pandamagic.

No worries folks, I'm always very glad to see supportive posts likes those above and I certainly didn't take any of them as less than appreciative, quite the reverse in fact. Yes, it can take a while to wield the mop and bucket to clear up the effluent and very often the crud appears at times when I'm doing something else but I think we all know that spammers are just stupid morons and their 'products and services' can't be any good otherwise they wouldn't need to spam with them.

There are actually four peeps who can move and delete stuff, at the moment the others are heavily engaged on other matters so response time isn’t quite as swift as we’d all like. At the moment there are no plans to change things on TM so best course of action is to ignore the eejits, pour mental scorn on them, their offers and their pathetic attempts .

Bravo!

Everything is going to be ok.

what you need is someone who works from home mostly, has little or no life and few friends and is often around in the wee small hours when thease bots tend to post............ wait thats me.

what you need is someone who works from home mostly, has little or no life and few friends and is often around in the wee small hours when thease bots tend to post............ wait thats me.

Ditto.

Crowd source.

Use the introductions thread as an entry point. Most people post there as soon as they join. This is good. make it so that other established members can then vote on whether this person is a genuine human being or a bot based on the introduction.

posting to other sections is then unlocked after X positive votes.

Comments?

-Stacy

As if by magic, the ideas and concerns above, and many others, have been covered by the recent upgrade,. Proof if ever it were needed that there is a Santa Claus !