Spamtastic

[Antiriad2097]

Its great we have that ebay rule about not being able to sell until a certain number of posts though. Even worse are newbies who used to offer items and wanted you to pay by paypal as a 'gift' (yet still some people would do that). Crazy

Its not an ebay rule. The 50 posts rule is to offer some small basis of trust for trading directly on the forum, though even that has been abused in the past. At least with the ebay links you get the protection of ebay if you risk buying, since they invariably favour the buyer in any dispute these days so the 50 posts isn't especially relevant to that.

[markopoloman]

These 'developers' that keep popping up with links to their games........... Have we or can we get a rule in place as to what to do with them? Most are retro style games and 'could' offer some interest to others from the forum. But it is annoying that they come here and spam the game and bugger off.
Rather than just deleting the thread, maybe just delete the link and pop a message in place saying 'PM for link to game/site'. If they are genuinely interested in US buying/looking at their game then they should reply (although probably unlikely).

[jdanddiet]

If done right, it can be perfectly acceptable imo. This chap joined up, introduced himself, and whilst he hasn't been a prolific poster, he's certainly hung around.

http://www.retrogamer.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15&p=688656#p688656

[psj3809]

^Yep that guy seems totally legit. Most do seem that they just want to post their link to their game and then never post again

Then again its similar to the youtube section of the forum, theres a fair few single posters who just want to get more views, yet we dont seem to go crazy deleting those.

[markopoloman]

I don't bother looking at the youtube section!

Would be good if all the spambusters ran on the same ideas though.....

[thingonaspring]

maybe have a single (relevant, retro) games promoters thread - instead of deleting them each time, can you merge the single post into one big thread? then if anybody *does* happen to think it's worth a look, they can let the rest of us know - since most of the time the dev doesn't stick around after advertising.

[psj3809]

Over on the Touch Arcade forum the spammers are getting very clever.

The latest spam 'fad' is to post a small sentence (or often copy one from someone else in the same thread), i thought they looked weird so i clicked 'quote' and then you see a URL with an invisible .gif, so basically its spamming those websites. You dont see it as its often a tiny white .gif which is at the website, very clever !

Reported a fair few over at touch arcade. At the moment most of the spammers here are thankfully thick as two short planks and just post some crap about dvds with 40 links in the signature so obviously easy to spot.

But the next generation of spammers, they're getting clever !

[Antiriad2097]

maybe have a single (relevant, retro) games promoters thread - instead of deleting them each time, can you merge the single post into one big thread? then if anybody *does* happen to think it's worth a look, they can let the rest of us know - since most of the time the dev doesn't stick around after advertising.

Sadly, most of us don't have the permissions to do that. We can edit posts, we can delete them, and that's about it. No moving them, merging them, blocking or deleting accounts or anything.

[Liamh1982]

And the world record for most links in one spam post goes to qinchat!

Reported, natch.

[noobish hat]

That was impressive.

[psj3809]

Wish we had permissions to delete those spam accounts though, theres tonnes of them, some seem to come back and post more spam. Others just sit there advertising their dodgy kitchen website etc, its like theyre teasing me ! Just want to delete them !!

But be nice if we had one of those 'captcha' type things you have to do if you create a new account at most websites, you have to either type two words or you could have one with pictures (make them retro characters) , that would get rid of a fair few spammers

[psj3809]

Is there a mod with 'super powers' who can delete spammers ?

Just find it frustrating deleting post after post when the spammer is there posting more and more. Normally you would select the user and choose 'ban ip address/delete all posts' etc and jobs a good un but we've got limited powers now.

I've PM'ed Darran a few times but no response. But like at the moment fgdag4 is just adding a spam thread the second i delete his old ones

Just frustrating

[DreamcastRIP]

Is there a mod with 'super powers' who can delete spammers ?

Just find it frustrating deleting post after post when the spammer is there posting more and more. Normally you would select the user and choose 'ban ip address/delete all posts' etc and jobs a good un but we've got limited powers now.

I've PM'ed Darran a few times but no response. But like at the moment fgdag4 is just adding a spam thread the second i delete his old ones

Just frustrating

So precisely which powers do the 'spam busters' now have if, as intimated, those powers have recently been reined in?

Is it just being able to delete spam posts?

Or do you 'spam busters' still have the power to close and/or delete reports?

Do you still receive notifications when members report posts?

[noobish hat]

I don't think he meant they've been reigned in. I certainly haven't noticed that happening. I still have access to the moderator control panel. I would like the power to ban/delete accounts for the reasons psj just mentioned.

[psj3809]

So precisely which powers do the 'spam busters' now have if, as intimated, those powers have recently been reined in?

Is it just being able to delete spam posts?

Or do you 'spam busters' still have the power to close and/or delete reports?

Do you still receive notifications when members report posts?

Yep we still receive reports, can delete posts or edit them. The problem is when an annoying spammer like fgdag4 appears and posts spam after spam, i can only just delete one of his posts at a time, in the old days you could select the spammer, delete all posts at once by him and then block/ban his account and thats it, jobs a good un. fgdag4 was posting a new spam thread every few minutes, so frustrating as anything.

So its like a game of cat and mouse now, he posts a spam post, i delete it, he posts another, i delete it which is frustrating. If fgdag4 posts more later then one at a time i delete them, i cant stop his account. So spammers could essentially keep spamming and we keep deleting them one by one which is ridiculous really. 'Most' spammers seem to post a few and then disappear but the odd one will come back it seems and post more.

If you view the recent users you'll see the spammers have 0 posts but their accounts are active. Or theres spammers who join just to put their URL there (which i cant delete as i cant delete the spam user account which is frustrating).

Nearly feel like giving up as if theres a spammer who might post 20 spam threads, theres no way i'll be chasing him deleting post after post when in normal terms i should just be able to select his account and nuke him and his posts.

Think its still down to the infamous episode months back when that young lad was posting thread after thread (eg why is the sky blue?) type crap, no one was around, i suspended his account (as he was spamming like crazy) so i could wait for other mods/Darren to ask what to do, the 'spammers' mum got involved, moaned to Imagine, the mods had their powers taken away (Thats when i then went away during my 'hissy fit' !), said she was going to the police (?!?) and since then we havent had proper mod powers. Ridiculous.

Thats why theres now 100's of old spam accounts listed in the user list with all those dodgy URL's sat there. eg memberlist.php?mode=&sk=c&sd=d#memberlist