Spam flooded the forum Game Discussion

[Mango Choo-choo]

I mean stardew valley is a cool game and all but I doubt that our forum has as much traffic as some other games forums or other sites. Kind of weird, maybe AI bots like stardew valley or something?

well, I suspect that is because they are clear we don't have bot moderator mechanic to remove spam efficiently.

And it is evident they are old friends of our forums.
Anti-virus ads or others I have seen many times.
As I suggested many times, we need to exploit AI Tech to eradicate our nemesis.
At least the bots can put these spam in quarantine.

 

[Mango Choo-choo]

Trying to clear everything out now, clearly we will need to update some of our spam filters!

Thank you so much for the effort

 

[Pangaearocks]

Just curious why they chose Stardew Valley forums.
I don't think we have high traffic here
Yes, I expect we can have a solution to resolve the problem once and for all.

Think it's less about exposure here per se, and more about spreading their spam as many places as they can, as often as possible, let webcrawlers cache their crap and thus rank higher in search engines.

The sooner it's gone, the better, but that's not easy with a handful of people, and probably not cover for all time zones.

 

[Pangaearocks]

They're also at it again I see

Nuke them from orbit

 

[Mango Choo-choo]

Think it's less about exposure here per se, and more about spreading their spam as many places as they can, as often as possible, let webcrawlers cache their crap and thus rank higher in search engines.

The sooner it's gone, the better, but that's not easy with a handful of people, and probably not cover for all time zones.

The only thing baffles me for a long time is that I think only registered users can post threads, right?
Why spam bots could skip the process of signing up?
I think they guys don't have access to post anything.
It doesn't make any sense.
This is a technical vulnerability of the forums.

On the other hand, they have probably kown how to sign up in batches.
That represents they know everything about the logic of the forums.
That could be another invisible conspiracy.

 

[Mango Choo-choo]

new

I mean stardew valley is a cool game and all but I doubt that our forum has as much traffic as some other games forums or other sites. Kind of weird, maybe AI bots like stardew valley or something?

hmmm... I am dubious if the spam bots have such quirk?
That is really confusing.

 

[Ereo]

The only thing baffles me for a long time is that I think only registered users can post threads, right?
Why spam bots could skip the process of signing up?
I think they guys don't have access to post anything.
It doesn't make any sense.
This is a technical vulnerability of the forums.

On the other hand, they have probably kown how to sign up in batches.
That represents they know everything about the logic of the forums.
That could be another invisible conspiracy.

They do have to sign up, but that’s not that hard. Anything you do to delay bots signing up will also delay regular users, which is quite annoying if you found the forums when you have an issue you want to report or solve.

There are spam filters which are updated regularly, but they will always find a way around them. I’m wondering if the weird font they use now is because the words are blocked by the spam filter.

It takes a while to clean them up because at the moment, each account only posts one or two threads, so we have to delete them individually.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Adding on to Ereo's post, previous to the current more open and easy method of signing up there was a time last year during which we got almost zero signups for months, which really hurts the utility of the Forums. It's not clear whether that was just a misconfiguration or a side effect of intentional design but it was too restrictive. The current more open, but more susceptible to spam, method can be annoying at times but allows for much greater access for Stardew Players to this community.

 

[NextXander]

Please keep in mind that for every spam post that dodges the filters and gets posted, there are like 30 or more posts that do get stopped by the filters. Ideally, we want none of them to evade the filters, so we constantly update them, but then the spammers react by updating their posts so we have to update the filters again and so on, so it's a constant battle.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Please keep in mind that for every spam post that dodges the filters and gets posted, there are like 30 or more posts that do get stopped by the filters. Ideally, we want none of them to evade the filters, so we constantly update them, but then the spammers react by updating their posts so we have to update the filters again and so on, so it's a constant battle.

I always see it as an imaginary thumb war.

 

[Odin]

I’m wondering if the weird font they use now is because the words are blocked by the spam filter.

This is exactly why they use those. They don't know what words we have in our filter, but they know we have a filter in place. By using unusual characters, it's more likely their spam messages get through. There's a particular type of spam post at this point that almost always gets caught, but accounts continue to sign up, only for their post to be flagged and never reach anyone. Other types of spam change constantly and are much harder to keep up with.

 

[Mango Choo-choo]

Please keep in mind that for every spam post that dodges the filters and gets posted, there are like 30 or more posts that do get stopped by the filters. Ideally, we want none of them to evade the filters, so we constantly update them, but then the spammers react by updating their posts so we have to update the filters again and so on, so it's a constant battle.

Constant battle makes me daunted, but it is okay, let us safeguard our garden.

 

[DOBITEUS]

Spam is like Thanos: inevitable and it will be part of Internet until its end. I'm just reporting as always and accepted that bots will be everywhere, we can improve our filter methods, they will found more efficient and effective ways of making their spam, a continuous battle; just like taking a bath, sweeping the floor or clean the dust.
So just accept it and keep reporting, the first one to lose is the first who loses its patience in my opinion xd.

 

[Mango Choo-choo]

Spam is like Thanos: inevitable and it will be part of Internet until its end. I'm just reporting as always and accepted that bots will be everywhere, we can improve or filter methods, they will found more efficient and effective ways of making their spam, a continuous battle; just like taking a bath, sweeping the floor or clean the dust.
So just accept it and keep reporting, the first one to lose is the first who loses its patience in my opinion xd.

the only thing I can hardly accept is that spammers are somehow smarter than we are but it is okay to see who wins finally

 

[Ereo]

the only thing I can hardly accept is that spammers are somehow smarter than we are but it is okay to see who wins finally

It’s not that they are smarter, it’s that they adapt, and we adapt. No one is ever gonna win, it’s an eternal battle.

 

[Lew Zealand]

…it’s an eternal battle.

 

[Quirinea]

BTW Do those slimy disgusting creatures called spammers prefer to hit when North America is asleep? I remember working as a spamfighter on another site, years ago. And it was just that I was in Europe, the spam started pouring when US was sleeping.

 

[Lew Zealand]

BTW Do those slimy disgusting creatures called spammers prefer to hit when North America is asleep? I remember working as a spamfighter on another site, years ago. And it was just that I was in Europe, the spam started pouring when US was sleeping.

It trickles in throughout the day but seems to ramp up about 0600-0700 UTC, which is midnight-1am east coast and 9-10pm west coast of North America. So yeah, sleepy time. If it's coming primarily from the Eastern Hemisphere, it's daytime/afternoon there so tea time and spam time.

 

[Quirinea]

It trickles in throughout the day but seems to ramp up about 0600-0700 UTC, which is midnight-1am east coast and 9-10pm west coast of North America. So yeah, sleepy time. If it's coming primarily from the Eastern Hemisphere, it's daytime/afternoon there so tea time and spam time.

Send the Spanish inquisition, please!

 

[Pangaearocks]

Send the Spanish inquisition, please!

Nobody expects them!