Question WHY are we getting spammers on the boards?

[moffeaton]

Is it because of open registration?

I am looking for models and props, not Western Union scams, bank login ids, wiener pills, thorazine, etc etc!!!!

 

[Mutant-Enemy]

The thread seems to have been removed though not before the guy somehow deleted yours and my comments from it!

 

[exoray]

The quick and dirty of it... It's a combination of many factors but the three main ones are...

1. There has been an increase in forced public indexing of the site in Google/Facebook/Twitter recently...
2. It's a default vBulletin install, thus it's easy to single out in a Google search as a forum to spam...
3. No moderation cue or delay, or at least one that is not actively monitored...

It comes with the territory, you want exposure you get it both good and bad exposure...

The spam can be controlled and severely limited (even on an open forum) but it requires several modifications... The easiest way to to start is to re-organize the script, I don't know vBulletins current licensing agreement so you might be limited, in fact I would bet it is, but in short when you have a ".../register.php" file on your website and a "Powered by vBulletin" at the bottom of the pages (I believe this tag is part of the licensing agreement and can't be removed), it begs to be exploited by automated spam indexers and crawlers...

A Google search for

register filetypehp "Powered by vBulletin"

will give you a never ending list of links to vBulletin boards to join and spam, a search that exploits the default install of vBulletin (aka a register.php file and the 'Powered by vBulletin' tag on the page) making it easy to identify as a forum in searches...

The easiest quick fix is the put 'newbie' accounts in a post moderation cue for a period of time, meaning they can post but the post won't show up until approved by a moderator... Thus you catch spammers and disable accounts before it hits the forum... An annoying thing to implement for the newbies but a very effective filter...

 

[moffeaton]

Understood, and agreed... Put 'em in "RPF boot camp".

 

[Mutant-Enemy]

Sounds like a good idea...
This might also explain why I get a pop-up search engine that appears at the bottom of my screen now, EVERY TIME I change pages here at RPF.
It's usually a Google search page but often it's geared to the page I'm looking at like "models" or "costuming" etc...
It's a little annoying considering how many times I change pages.:angry

 

[Art Andrews]

Sounds like a good idea...
This might also explain why I get a pop-up search engine that appears at the bottom of my screen now, EVERY TIME I change pages here at RPF.
It's usually a Google search page but often it's geared to the page I'm looking at like "models" or "costuming" etc...
It's a little annoying considering how many times I change pages.:angry

You are getting a search page or are you getting Google Adsense?

 

[Art Andrews]

It comes with the territory, you want exposure you get it both good and bad exposure...

That more or less sums it up. There is always going to be a little bad to go with the good. We actually put a spammer filter in place but we had problems with it blocking legitimate members, so we are looking into other options.

 

[Mutant-Enemy]

You are getting a search page or are you getting Google Adsense?

I'm not sure what "Adsense" is though I have read that it's a new thing here at RPF...whatever...
I get a new page that pops open (usually GOOGLE) and forcibly takes me to it. I have to close it to get back to the page I wanted to go to
(Every Time)
I thought originally it might be happening due to something with Mozilla FireFox so I went back to using Internet Explorer. NO GOOD...still happens, but ONLY when I'm navigating RPF.
Sometimes the page that pops up is a directory to search for costumes or Props depending on what page here at the RPF I was viewing.
It just doesn't quite make sense to me...why would you want to lead people AWAY from RPF if they are interested in being HERE and viewing the things they are interested in viewing HERE?
Or have I totally mis-interpreted the occurance?

 

[exoray]

I'm not sure what "Adsense" is though I have read that it's a new thing here at RPF...whatever...
I get a new page that pops open (usually GOOGLE) and forcibly takes me to it. I have to close it to get back to the page I wanted to go to
(Every Time)
I thought originally it might be happening due to something with Mozilla FireFox so I went back to using Internet Explorer. NO GOOD...still happens, but ONLY when I'm navigating RPF.
Sometimes the page that pops up is a directory to search for costumes or Props depending on what page here at the RPF I was viewing.
It just doesn't quite make sense to me...why would you want to lead people AWAY from RPF if they are interested in being HERE and viewing the things they are interested in viewing HERE?
Or have I totally mis-interpreted the occurance?

Sounds more like you have some browser hijacking malware on your computer...

Run a scan with http://www.malwarebytes.org/ and see if that helps out...

 

[Art Andrews]

It just doesn't quite make sense to me...why would you want to lead people AWAY from RPF if they are interested in being HERE and viewing the things they are interested in viewing HERE?
Or have I totally mis-interpreted the occurance?

You have definitely misinterpreted and as Exoray pointed out, there must be something else going on. While we have instituted Google Adsense on the site, we would never bring in pop-ups or popunders or ads that load a totally new page.

 

[Mutant-Enemy]

Good to know.
My PC has been given a shot of Penicillin...seems to be all better now.

 

[Smitty]

Just once I'd like baked beans instead of spam.

 

[cocomonk22]