The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[enxio27]

A look at the listing of today's birthdays is interesting:

Congratulations to: Delazarmr (42), Newqnvtor (42), YorikTed (41), doubocEvamb (41), CobraSoldieroi (40), DomenikFlal (40), vipecRax (37), phoebekk3 (37), staceyrj4 (37), rolandgg16 (37), adrianaek60 (37), alexandriazv1 (37), monicall3 (37), vanessavr3 (37), shellyje16 (37), isabellekr2 (37), calliejh3 (37), maggiehr18 (37), beatrizkg3 (37), vickiegs60 (37), elinorgi69 (37), patrickzh1 (37), mandyyw69 (37), davegl2 (37), marquitals60 (37), jimmiedu4 (37), Agrippatots (36), AbeCags (35), Vincentslept (35), mauraub4 (35), anabc2 (35), warrenki4 (35), AnnaSedowa (34), Mariusel (34), Mymemetok (34), egineschUlp (34), Dargothrorm (34), Kamaknob (33), MyxirMulk (33), StevenAwady (33), CopperCit (33), Michaelensub (31), KennethKally (31), Dawsonsild (30), KennethKandy (30)

Lots of people turning 37 today, with very similarly constructed usernames. Some of the others look a little suspicious, as well. Hmmmmm. . .

[rjamil]

Hi,

I see today's birthday as abnormal too:

Code: Select all

Congratulations to: Loranvk (42), goldiejz69 (42), lillianzn4 (42), taniakt3 (42), BrentQueks (41), Treslottneem (41), Brodvlx (41), Novanox (41), beatrizyk11 (41), ChoesGow (40), Akaschaplug (40), DimaSdub (39), FalkJaf (39), kathyfj60 (38), UrkrassKl (38), Mcafsqertor (38), Muz_DUOua (37), FelicaJex (37), SeltImmer (36), MIAQtq (35), MIAIjp (35), MIATkk (35), MIAKhn (35), MIAMxw (35), MIAXbu (35), MIALyk (35), MIAHrg (35), MIAYsg (35), MIALen (35), MIAHtq (35), MIAAql (35), MIAPoz (35), MIADsn (35), MIADaq (35), MIAWju (35), MIAJzk (35), MIAQgm (35), MIANkh (35), MIAMdg (35), Benbilk (35), GennadiyJus (35), cathrynkq2 (34), maribelan11 (34), winifredoz16 (34), pedroiv1 (34), elbakb16 (34), robynaq18 (34), leonali2 (34), jasonpr3 (34), audreyuf18 (34), madelynuv18 (34), genevaiv3 (34), karladc60 (34), toddpe2 (34), BallockKn (34), RandallZef (33), Danfosvltsriz (32), Clarkreunk (30)

There are 20 names starting with MIA??? and created from different location with same 35 y/o (female IDs) and zero posts.

[Pat-Moderator]

most new registrations
are spammers

as long as they remain silent,
we ignore them.


(we have enough work just banning the non-silent spammers.)
we may need to re-think this policy
if a silent spammer suddenly submits many posts---

[enxio27]

we may need to re-think this policy
if a silent spammer suddenly submits many posts---

I think that's their game plan--get registered, stay under the radar for a while, and then later on post a ton of spam.

[champagne]

we may need to re-think this policy
if a silent spammer suddenly submits many posts---

I think that's their game plan--get registered, stay under the radar for a while, and then later on post a ton of spam.

As normally a registration should come just before a post, one possible easy way is to kill new registrations with no post after one week/month. A sleeping member would just have to redo the registration to become active.

[alansh]

If you click on members, then click on Page 1 of, and enter 121 you can see that registrations suddenly increased to about 50 a day in late June 2017. Nearly all appear to have Jabber addresses. Many have unusual internet addresses and locations. It suddenly stopped around December for about a month, then started up again. It stopped again in early April. I don't see why you need Jabber addresses to send spam.

[enxio27]

As normally a registration should come just before a post, one possible easy way is to kill new registrations with no post after one week/month. A sleeping member would just have to redo the registration to become active.

For starters, you could delete everyone who has been registered for more than a year with NO posts at all. We did that with a forum I used to moderate, and deleted probably 75% of the user database. Many had been registered far longer than a year without ever posting.

[Pat-Moderator]

alansh,
the silent spammers
simply imagine that the web-crawler
sees the URL in their profile.
(it does NOT.)

these do not bother me.

my concern is that a spammer can quickly pour 8 posts, or 120, into the queue, before any Moderator notices and bans him.

we should limit the queued posts to 2 per member.
or 3, definitely sufficient for a legitimate poster.

[JasonLion]

Currently, the first two posts from any new member need to be approved manually, which is a little tedious for the moderators, but very effective at preventing spammers. The vast majority of posts requiring approval are spam.

[enxio27]

Currently, the first two posts from any new member need to be approved manually, which is a little tedious for the moderators, but very effective at preventing spammers. The vast majority of posts requiring approval are spam.

Do you then block or delete the spammers?

[StrmCkr]

Thought we built a anitspam bot based on grimlens setup... that did the tedious stuff for us.... (after the bot war on the old forum)

Strmckr

[enxio27]

Thought we built a anitspam bot based on grimlens setup... that did the tedious stuff for us.... (after the bot war on the old forum)

Sweet!

[Pat-Moderator]

the tedious part is
when a spammer quickly pours 8 posts, or 120, into the queue,
before any Moderator notices and bans him


it means
carefully reviewing each 5 posts in the queue
(and deleting max 5 at a time)


possibly Administrator has a less-tedious tool

we should limit the queued posts to 2 per member

[Pat-Moderator]

we should limit the queued posts to 2 per member

just now, i had to ban 11 spammers

but they have left 136 posts in the queue,
which must still be separately rejected


makes it tough to find the legitimate posts

[Mathimagics]

I use this forum a lot (you might well have noticed this ) and found myself recently observing the dubious "birthday lists" phenomenon...

Having studied the posts above, I have a new appreciation of the work of our learned colleagues, the moderators …

It seems to have occupied so much of Jason's time he has not found any time to post the annual appeal for contributions!

I will be sure to respond when he does, and I urge all regulars here to cough up too!