Since a few weeks ago, EF is getting more spam than usual. The spam originates from the same system. It creates about 50 user accounts per day.

Until a few days ago, gbn and I have manually checked the new users several times per day (they have odd user profile information), which was very effective but became tiresome.

Therefor EF now runs an automated anti-spammer program which renders spam accounts harmless before they can post, as a medium term solution. It has a hit rate of 80-90%. A few spams get through which is particularly annoying because it sometimes is not worksafe.

I search a few more people to shoulder this task. Here is how you can help.

1) Use the Report spam feature by clicking the triangle symbol in the top right corner of spam posts. It will send us mods a notification. A thank you to all members who have already used it.

2) The forum software is able to give the power to delete newbie accounts and their posts to normal user accounts. These volunteers don't have the full rights and responsibilities of moderators, but can be a big help in running a forum.

If you are interested in volunteering for this job and meet the following requirements, please send me a private message and I'll come back to you.

• You are an enough experienced internet user to distinguish spam and genuine newbie posts
• You have been registered on EF for some time and are no complete stranger to the community
• You visit EF with some regularity

If you have questions, please answer in this thread.

Hi,

I am pretty addicted to the forum -

I can possibly help with the Anti-Spam strategies...

How many attacks are you getting a day ? - I could maybe do a 'shift' for a while to relieve the burden - so I could log in (usually 7:30-8:30 in the morning) and do some 'house-keeping'...each day...

Does that help ? - I must say in the past month I've only noticed two or three posts getting through - and I'm coming on probably 4 times a day! - so you have been doing a great job!

I could make the commitment to do it until Christmas...and then review the commitment...

???

Swisspea

Hi Nathu

I'm also online quite a lot during the day and would be very happy to help. Although I work, I tend to have an EF window open most of the day (thinking about it, it sounds alot like addiction;-)

Let me know if I can help

Cheers
Nats

Hi Nathu

I am willing to volunteer, at least for the late hours.

I hang out here every now and again. If I can help then I will.

i've got an itchy reporting-finger, so the spam volunteers (spamoderators?? spamorators??) will hear from me

A new account was just registered, bearing all the hallmarks of a typical spammer - Sarah ArmstrongD ( you might want to check out the profile which is almost identical to the ones registered and subsequently banned by Nathu over the last few days ). This time, there were no posts though. But I think this account should be monitored.

I just add these new "members" to my ignore list - helps as a temporary solution.

I sent you a pm, and hope i can help you with the spams.

sparma police, arrest this user, he talks in spam

That one will delete the whole forum. Don't let her near any buttons

Shut up or i will delete you

See what I mean! she wanted to thank me and ended up groaning ;-P Buttons and Sutter = bad combo!

It's a good idea to get some more people to take care of this.

Last night at about 7, a new user posted a heap of hardcore **** in one thread and it stayed up for at least an hour after I reported it.

That one was particularly bad, think it could have gotten many of us in trouble at work.

Don't open the Das Perfekt Dinner thread. Wow.

I've come over all fluffy like reading all the offers of help..

..and some eejit muttering words of a sinking ship to much nodding of heads whilst a little crowd ran off into the night all in a fluffeh flutter.. a forum is all about community, well here it is alive and strong (sniff)

..or was that the phoenix I heard fluttering

Nathu, I would offer my help but I'm not good with buttons. Sutter, I'm so impressed you know what buttons are - respect!

It's just a shame that so many people didn't simply do what Nathu asked instead of making a public show of it:

As many of us know, a lot of extreme hard core pornograhy is being posted in the forums lately by rogue members with pictures, videos and text - and I appreciate that the moderators are removing this as soon as it is detected. Thank you very much.

Apart form reporting the post when we come accross it, is there anything that can be done to prevent the posts from being submitted in the first place - for those of us that access EF via work computers. Perhaps a filter can be used when submitting?

As far as I know, the only effective way to do that is to limit sites from which images can be shown. You can then either specifically choose acceptable sites (which is pretty fiddly work) or blanket-banning all external images, forcing people to upload to EF any images you want to display (which would increase server requirements).

Disabling images on your browser is also possible, although not a very practical option these days.

Just reported another spam i am getting fed up with doing this now sorry, but why are ****ers doing it grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.