Spam Killing Spree

[kailhofer]

I found many, many spams this morning, so I decided to try my new-found Moderator powers out for a spin. They're gone now, including a lot of old ones. It turns out deleting spam makes one feel better about themselves. Who knew? I only wish I could do more, like blocking spambot members and whatnot.

It may have been overstepping my place, but I hate spam, and it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

[Lester Curtis]

THANK YOU, Nate . . . and feel free to repeat the performance as needed!

[doc]

I found many, many spams this morning, so I decided to try my new-found Moderator powers out for a spin. They're gone now, including a lot of old ones. It turns out deleting spam makes one feel better about themselves. Who knew? I only wish I could do more, like blocking spambot members and whatnot.

It may have been overstepping my place, but I hate spam, and it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

I would not have extended power to you if I didn't expect you to wield it.

[kailhofer]

Hmm. I must have left my loincloth on the other chapel ceiling...

[Lester Curtis]

What incredible irony . . . three consecutive spams posted to the 'spam-killing spree' thread . . .

[Robert_Moriyama]

I found that we'd been hit by a spambot during the night, so I banned the user ID and deleted the 50 messages it'd gifted us with. I wish I knew where the "delete all posts by this user" option is in the Moderator Control Panel.

Dan

There is an option like that in the Administration panel. Given a username, you can ban by username, ban by e-mail, ban by IP, deactivate or delete username, and delete all posts by a user. Given a partial username or partial e-mail address, you can list all matching users and delete them and any posts they may have in one swell foop. Alas, most of the junk memberships we get are from gmail addresses with no common factors to easily separate them from legitimate members who choose to use gmail. (I routinely delete anything registered with an e-mail address ending in .ru, .pl, .co.tv, and check for usernames and e-mail addresses with obvious stuff like 'viagra', 'cialis', 'sex', 'coupon', 'business', etc. in them. ('seo' (Search Engine Optimizer) names also pop up quite a bit.)

I have deleted over a thousand inactive members, and hundreds of active members with spammer characteristics, and banned a lot of usernames, e-mail addresses, and IP addresses from posting... and we still get at least a dozen probably-junk registrations EVERY DAY, most of which I can't be sure should be deleted...

If you run across a username that posts multiple copies of a spam message or messages, don't delete them one at a time -- send me (or Rob) a PM and one of us will deal with it/her/him. (Unless, of course, the joy of stomping is upon you, and you LIKE sweeping up the fewmets one at a time.)

RM