OBiTALK Community

General Support => OBiTALK Web Portal => Topic started by: Taoman on November 21, 2016, 02:42:13 PM

Title: Forum spam
Post by: Taoman on November 21, 2016, 02:42:13 PM
It seems this forum has been increasingly hit with multiple spam posts. And now some of the links are leading to porn sites. I would think that Obihai and the forum Mods (if there are any) would be less than pleased with this situation.

Suggestion: give one or more of the forum trusted "regulars" (like SteveInWa or drgeoff or azrobert) the power to disable and/or delete the offensive accounts and posts. I am not sure if this forum software allows that level of granularity. If so, I hope you will consider this request.

Forum members: if you agree this would be a good idea please click on "Report to moderator" in the bottom right of this post and say something like "Please read this post" or "I agree with this post" or whatever you feel is appropriate. Thanks.

PS. If anyone else has any bright ideas on how to stem the tide of spam that's been flooding this forum please share your thoughts.
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: WelshPaul on November 22, 2016, 06:59:54 AM
Having installed, run, updated and maintained several forums over the years, it's a fairly simply process preventing spam. Running any community forum requires rules, admins and moderators! Something that Obihai appear to be lacking.

All modern forum software contain features that help prevent spam and spam bots as standard. As we all know already, Obihai are running an old version of Simple Machines and no doubt, like most companies refuse to spend any time (or money) upgrading.

It is however very concerning that Obihai don't appear to have any staff available to remove offensive spam!

Also worth noting, companies usually require an NDA agreement or similar in place before allowing someone access to moderator/administrative privileges. Had to sign a few myself in the past!
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: AlanB on November 22, 2016, 07:20:59 PM
A software upgrade would be the best course of action but I don't see that happening.
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: sylvaing on December 01, 2016, 04:35:26 PM
I left them a complaint message on their Facebook page. Maybe if many do the same, it will get their attention? Worth a try?
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: Ember1205 on December 01, 2016, 07:23:20 PM
I'm all for having more folks help out.

I don't believe that the "Report to moderator" option for this thread has ANY value, however. They don't respond when I report SPAM, why would they respond when I ask them to read this thread?
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: sylvaing on December 01, 2016, 08:53:11 PM
Well, they do read Facebook. My Facebook message was shown as read and the spam has 'magically' disappeared  :) For now at least...
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: Ember1205 on December 02, 2016, 05:21:12 AM
Quote from: sylvaing on December 01, 2016, 08:53:11 PM
Well, they do read Facebook. My Facebook message was shown as read and the spam has 'magically' disappeared  :) For now at least...

It's good that there seems to be a method to getting some of the garbage deleted. It's unfortunate that you have to go to another site to tell them to manage this one, though.
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: nlurker on December 02, 2016, 06:24:16 AM
Quote from: Ember1205 on December 02, 2016, 05:21:12 AM
It's good that there seems to be a method to getting some of the garbage deleted. It's unfortunate that you have to go to another site to tell them to manage this one, though.

Unfortunate, but informative.  At least we now know that Obihai definitely does not read anything we post here.  That knowledge is valuable in itself.
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: sylvaing on December 04, 2016, 07:16:41 AM
I sent the following message:

There we go, more spamming 😞 If I may humbly suggest, you should consider giving moderator privileges to some of your more senior members there. I'm sure some would be honored to get that privilege and would keep the board clean.
-------------------------------------

And got the following answer:

Hi Sylvain,

Thanks for the heads-up and keeping our forums more spam-free.
We will take your suggestion to consideration within the team.
Have a great weekend.

Best Regards,
Obihai Technology, Inc.
-------------------------------------

Keeping my finger crossed...
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: Lavarock7 on December 04, 2016, 04:55:29 PM
Many spam messages are ways to get traffic to a particular site (or to deposit viruses).

In the case of traffic to a site, the site may have taken up an offer to increase traffic and the company offering that service just spams email account and forums. Also the forums add that posting and link to Google as part of their normal posting process.

I say someone should notify the ISP of the sites that are receiving the traffic. They may not care but it is a start.

Also the forum needs to enable a posting limit and look at the IP addresses of these spammers. If outside the US, there are ways to block certain countries from forums. Cloudflare is one such way.
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: mykmayk on December 04, 2016, 08:21:48 PM
it's a good thing that the obitalk community is smart enough not to fall for those spam postings. no one is clicking on them: 0 views.

people notice spam quite quickly since they're posted by the same user; irrelevant topic; successive posting within a short time span.
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: arobatino on December 05, 2016, 12:25:46 AM
Quote from: sylvaing on December 01, 2016, 08:53:11 PM
Well, they do read Facebook. My Facebook message was shown as read and the spam has 'magically' disappeared  :) For now at least...
The "Installation and Set-Up (Devices)" board https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?board=3.0 is full of spam again, though it looks like the older spam is indeed gone. They'll have to check at least once a day, or at least when people use "Report to moderator".
Title: Re: Forum spam
Post by: sylvaing on December 07, 2016, 05:50:36 PM
... at least when people use "Report to moderator".

But for that to work, there must be active moderators and from what I can see, beside OBI admins that do not check the board, there are no moderator here...