Who is watching the henhouse

[Multiracer]

This week ? Spammers and scammers everywhere on this site ?

 

[digger242j]

I worked 12 1/2 hours today. The last thing I did before I went out was to ban spammers and remove spam. Pardon me for eating dinner before I came here to ban 6 more, and remove ten spam posts.

For the last month or so, I've been checking the profiles of every new member, and proactively banning any that fit the "spammer" profile. I haven't kept count, but I'm sure there are upwards of 50 that never even got to post.

Since the beginning of the year, we've been putting all the "Live S treaming", and more recently "Review" spam in one thread. As of this moment, there are 417 posts in there, and I'm pretty sure there are none anywhere else on the forums.

And I posted this the other day, in reply to a similar complaint from a member--If you mouse over the thread title, you can see the first few lines of the thread contents. If it's spam, why would any of you bother reading it?

The staff is all volunteer, and more dedicated than you can imagine. If you want somebody to be here 24/7 to "mind the henhouse", maybe you should take up a collection...

 

[excavator]

Like you said it's quite easy to tell if it's spam. Thank you digger and all the other admins for the work that it takes to keep this an extremely interesting and helpful forum. It is greatly appreciated.

 

[CM1995]

As Digger stated we mods all have jobs, families, companies to run and a personal life outside of HEF.

Regularly I open my email to see "Reported post" emails (thank you members who report it as it really helps us pinpoint where it is quickly and remove it ) only to see that another Mod has already removed the spam. If it's not been removed, I catch it along with regular ol' spam, which all go into the bowels of HEF.

The ********* video spammers are hitting HEF hard and we're doing what we can to remove them. To insinuate no one is watching the henhouse of HEF is far from the reality.

If anyone sees the obvious spam post please hit report post so we can find them quickly and remove them. Your help is appreciated.

 

[ol'stonebreaker]

You guys are appreciated from this end!! A welding site I frequent has been getting spammers and a couple of them in some foreign language I'm pretty sure most of the world can't read. As said all members can help the mods by clicking on the little triangle on the bottom left of the thread.
Mike

 

[willie59]

Same here, I spend a good bit of time booting these $treaming spammers. Not complaining about it, it's just the reality of the moment. And for the moment they're a step ahead of us, we have to be in react mode. Steve is working on a solution, until then we just have to keep booting them.

 

[Steve Frazier]

It's very difficult to come up with a solution that will deter the spammers yet make it simple for new members to register. We have human verification methods in place that prevent spambots from running rampant but when an actual human is posting the spam it becomes difficult. Any steps we would take to make things harder for them would effect the general membership as well. We are being targeted because of our success, there's a tremendous amount of traffic here.

I'm extremely grateful to the time and effort your Moderators put in attempting to keep HEF clean. It's very disturbing and disheartening to me to see posts disparaging their efforts.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . .

This is the tidiest best run site of the many I visit and the folks who run it should be congratulated for their efforts . . . thanks fellers.

Cheers'

 

[Mark250]

Yair . . .

This is the tidiest best run site of the many I visit and the folks who run it should be congratulated for their efforts . . . thanks fellers.

Cheers'

second that
mark

 

[digger242j]

Thanks, guys. The kind words are really appreciated.

Any steps we would take to make things harder for them would effect the general membership as well.

As I said above, I now constantly look at the Member List, in descending order of join date. In so doing, I not only see the spammers and potential spammers, but I get a look at just how frequently people are joining to find help in a hurry--help that our community more often than not provides them.

I know exactly where in the Admin Control Panel to go to make it so that any other spam post will never see the light of day. We could set it so that all posts by new members go into a moderation queue, and only after said post is approved by one of the staff would it appear on the Forums. That would mean though, that any legitimate new member that posts with a problem in need of immediate attention would have to wait for their post to be seen as well. I'd consider that to be conceding defeat, and for that reason, it's not something that I've ever even suggested that we do.

On edit: And again, I'll suggest that nobody even bother viewing a spam thread.

You guys can recognize the profile as well. It's almost always a username that makes no sense in the English language, almost as if a monkey were banging away at the keyboard. And the thread titles while interesting sentence fragments, have nothing to do with heavy equipment. There are other clues we can see from the Control Panel. If there's any satisfaction to be found in this whole process, it's in banning one that's "Activating registration", or "Creating thread in..." whichever forum. But if I have to move a spam thread, I want to see that it has ZERO replies and ZERO views. That way I can at least feel that these idiots are wasting their own time as well as ours.

 

[Multiracer]

fellows,
There was no insinuation that were not doing a good job. That saying has been around probably longer than some of you.
I do appreciate this forum as I have benefitted from it more than once. To insinuate that I was being rude or demeaning to you mods is just as insulting.
I will silently "report" from here on in.
Thanks again
Ron

 

[Queenslander]

Call me naive if you like, but what do spammers hope to achieve with all this.......spamming?
Recently we have noticed a big surge in the number of hoax emails informing us of unclaimed fortunes etc.
Surely everyone is aware of this garbage by now, making it a pointless exercise.

 

[digger242j]

And in the "watching the henhouse" spirit of this thread...

I got a PM from a guy. His username is Moogafluxgoobnging. He's an IT guy, apparently, from Bangladesh. He's offered to work as a Moderator. Says he knows a lot about forum spam...

Wadda ya think?

 

[Multiracer]

Have him submit his resume to the White House address.

 

[JNB]

And in the "watching the henhouse" spirit of this thread...

I got a PM from a guy. His username is Moogafluxgoobnging. He's an IT guy, apparently, from Bangladesh. He's offered to work as a Moderator. Says he knows a lot about forum spam...

Wadda ya think?

I say go for it. Send him your bank account # and get with it!

 

[CM1995]

And in the "watching the henhouse" spirit of this thread...

I got a PM from a guy. His username is Moogafluxgoobnging. He's an IT guy, apparently, from Bangladesh. He's offered to work as a Moderator. Says he knows a lot about forum spam...

Wadda ya think?

I say sponsor him on a work visa and put him up in your spare bedroom for 6 months, then we'll know if he's worthy.:tong

 

[CM1995]

Call me naive if you like, but what do spammers hope to achieve with all this.......spamming?
Recently we have noticed a big surge in the number of hoax emails informing us of unclaimed fortunes etc.
Surely everyone is aware of this garbage by now, making it a pointless exercise.

Queenslander that's what has me puzzled. Somehow the spammers are making money on the live ********* but I haven't clicked nor watched it to see what it could be. Could be malware, phishing or just bootleg advertising.:beatsme

Whatever it is it's enough money to keep them coming back again and again.

 

[RBMcCloskey]

second that
mark

I third that.
Pardon my asking, but what is the purpose of these spammers?

 

[StumpyWally]

As a retired computer systems manager (& civil engineer), I know & appreciate what you Admins on HEF are up against Re: the spammers.

This forum is INVALUABLE to all us heavy equipment fans...I'm sure we all appreciate your efforts, so keep up the good fight...don't weaken!!

 

[donkey doctor]

Agree with what Stumpy said. Thank you. d.d.