Ren Toxx Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Abbey Wingtips wrote: [...] Have reported as inappropriate content to moderator, the spammers. maybe if we all do so, this might help? It might improve the daily cleanup's efficiency, by lowering the chance that any particular spammer ends up overlooked by the moderators because no one reported it in the belief that others already did. But I'm with Qie: at this point not fighting it may be our best option, in the hope that it gets so bad that eventually Linden Labs feels compelled to reconsider their current, spectacularly failed strategy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 First @Tiffy - I'm with you and agree 100%. Just because it's been here for months (has it gotten to a year yet? sure seems like it) doesn't make it any less annoying. As far as LL fixing it "eventually" - why do I not have great faith in that? Abbey Wingtips wrote: Have reported as inappropriate content to moderator, the spammers. maybe if we all do so, this might help? It would be great if our reporting would help; this angle has been discussed over the past months with several forumites commenting that this shouldn't be our responsibility. Some/many of us did flag the spam when it first started but over time either decided it wasn't our responsibility or just got tired of playing "Whack-a-Mole" with this spam. Also, and I could be wrong on this, from what I understand from reading about this issue over the months - unlike the old forums where the moderators were residents who volunteered and with whom we also interacted on the forums - the current moderators are employees from a third-party company LL has contracted and are paid to moderate the forums. If I am incorrect on this, someone please correct me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teagan Tobias Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 First: If a third party is handling the forums, has anyone filed a JIRA about the spam. Could it be that LL pays so little attention to the forums they just don't know. Possible??? Second: If a third party is involved, can we find out who they are and complain directly to them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czari Zenovka Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Teagan Tobias wrote: First: If a third party is handling the forums, has anyone filed a JIRA about the spam. Could it be that LL pays so little attention to the forums they just don't know. Possible??? Second: If a third party is involved, can we find out who they are and complain directly to them? I have no idea on either point, Teagan. I was surprised when I first read it months ago because I was still under the impression that we had volunteer moderators the same as on the old forums. I would honestly like to know as well; now I can't recall who provided the info about the moderators being from a third party. Also, isn't the forum software now provided by a third party? Perhaps the moderators are employees of that company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qie Niangao Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 There are several jira reports of the problem. One is BUG-4433 filed by Sassy Romano last November 12th, and closed as "Unactionable" by Alexa Linden on January 24th. Probably you can't see that jira because I don't think it's been opened for general view, although I believe Sassy could do that. If it's currently hidden, that doesn't indicate anything sinister, just a snafu of the ancien regime. Anyway, there certainly are Lindens who know of the problem. [ETA: Coby Foden filed one last week that appears to be public: BUG-5741. Not closed yet.] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Teagan Tobias wrote: Not sure if this is what is going on or not, but this is how I read it. Because of the ads on the page, every piece of spam has the ad displayed to it. Every time that happens LL gets paid by the ad because someone is on the page and the ad is displayed to them. So the spam is income. Is that how it works? I doesn't look like anyone replied to this post of yours, so I will. No that's not how it works. LL get paid for click-throughs, not for impressions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Tiffy Vella wrote: I am over it. Four pages of crap, guys, probably more but I've stopped looking. It's not good enough. This forum is rapidly losing any value. I come here to find out information to help me in Second Life and to help promote it's excellence. I don't give a rats arse about nasty Indian prostitutes or pirated telly. Moaning about the forum spam is a waste of mental energy, unless moaning about it gets it off your chest and you feel better for it. Any forum owner can deal with the spam very easily if they want to, and it's been going on so long that it's patently obvious that LL has no desire to deal with it, which means, of course, that they have no interest in the forum whatsoever, so don't expect anything to be done about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Pussycat Catnap wrote: Hoppimike wrote: It's weird. I've run a pretty popular forum for almost 5 years now and we get zero spam AFAIK. I've said this in almost every one of these threads... I'm getting tired of saying it... http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/new-theory-on-sl-signups-that-never-seem-to-join-theyre-forum-spam-bots/ And I said this in reply to you saying it in the recent thread that was removed:- there's nothing new about that theory. It wasn't even new to this forum when you wrote it. I wrote about it in the RA forum with regard to ranking parcels in search (before you even joined SL), and I've written about it in this forum concerning this forum spam. Link spam is as old as the hills - well, quite old, anyway It began when the Inktomi engine started to factor links into its ranking algo. That predated Google, but it really took off some time later, after Google was launched with its heart of links (PageRank) and became very popular. P.S. Please don't cite your experience in seo like you did the last time, or I will have to reply as I did the last time You probably didn't see the reply before the thread was deleted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coby Foden Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Teagan Tobias wrote: First: If a third party is handling the forums, has anyone filed a JIRA about the spam. Yes, I have. I'm waiting to see will it be closed as "Not applicable" or something like that. :smileysurprised: :smileytongue: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-5741 Now everybody do click the above link and start watching the issue. If we don't do anything, most likely nothing will happen. If we do something, then there is a slight chance that something could happen. It's always worth trying, it costs nothing. :matte-motes-big-grin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake1 Nightfire Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Thats what i dont get about these spam posts.. there are no links to click, so what do they gain? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 I'm sure they come with links but there aen't any around at the moment to check. I actually looked at one earlier today, and I'm certain it contained at least one link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake1 Nightfire Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Phil Deakins wrote: I'm sure they come with links but there aen't any around at the moment to check. I actually looked at one earlier today, and I'm certain it contained at least one link. every single one that i have ever reported hs not had a link, just a bunch of textlines repeated. They may have been links before the forum AI removed the links. Like if you copy paste from wikipedia it removes the links before you post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tex Monday Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Drake1 Nightfire wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: I'm sure they come with links but there aen't any around at the moment to check. I actually looked at one earlier today, and I'm certain it contained at least one link. every single one that i have ever reported hs not had a link, just a bunch of textlines repeated. They may have been links before the forum AI removed the links. Like if you copy paste from wikipedia it removes the links before you post. I believe that Drake is right. The posts do not contain links. Most of them contain phone numbers of some undetermined area that you can call to receive your black magic or mumbi prostitute (for only .29/minute plus any additional charges they may decide to throw at you) :matte-motes-sunglasses-3: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 I'll have a look the next time I see some. I'm sure that they used contain links even if they don't now. All the past discussions were about them being link spam, and we wouldn't have discussed it like that if they didn't contain any links.. I'm thinking of three possibilities. One is that the links are now not easily seen in the posts but they will be revealed by looking at the html. Another is that someone has changed it so that they are filtered out. And the third is that they now do what link spammers of single posts do - come back some time in the future and edit the post so that it then contains link spam. The first one is a good possibility. I don't fancy the second because it would mean that someone has done something about the spam links but is unwilling to stop the daily flood of posts. I don't fancy the third one either, because there are so many posts, but it's still a possibility. There's another one too - that it's all done by someone with a grudge against LL or the forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pussycat Catnap Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Phil Deakins wrote: Pussycat Catnap wrote: Hoppimike wrote: It's weird. I've run a pretty popular forum for almost 5 years now and we get zero spam AFAIK. I've said this in almost every one of these threads... I'm getting tired of saying it... http://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/new-theory-on-sl-signups-that-never-seem-to-join-theyre-forum-spam-bots/ And I said this in reply to you saying it in the recent thread that was removed:- there's nothing new about that theory. It wasn't even new to this forum when you wrote it. I wrote about it in the RA forum with regard to ranking parcels in search (before you even joined SL), and I've written about it in this forum concerning this forum spam. Link spam is as old as the hills - well, quite old, anyway It began when the Inktomi engine started to factor links into its ranking algo. That predated Google, but it really took off time years later, after Google was launched with its heart of links (PageRank) and became very popular. P.S. Please don't cite your experience in seo like you did the last time, or I will have to reply as I did the last time You probably didn't see the reply before the thread was deleted. Is that some kind of deranged threat? Why does it matter if the theory has been around for a while? Its accurate. What is your problem here, what has got you all attitude worked up? That I don't credit you in my blog for something you claim to have said before me randomly somewhere on 'teh interwebz' about a tangent to my actual point? As for my blog calling itself a 'new theory' - I'll stand to that statement for when I made it and more importantly WHY. At the time everyone kept harping on LLs for having something like 1% retention. People were complaining about the new user experience, the UI, and every other thing under the sun to explain how most signups only lasted 1 day... My theory was simply that they were never even signing up to begin with. Your confusing my reason for that with what I was getting on about... I make this point often because I think LLs actually does a GOOD JOB with rentention, but doesn't know it. Why are you getting all bat-crazy psyched out over my use of the word 'new' as it is was some kind of war crime... as if my entire point was that one single word, when its not my point at all. Seriously need to chill there. If you don't like my theory, attack it on its merrits. Not some adhominem over my use of the word 'new' as if that was important. You don't like how I phrase my titles, that's your problem. Get over yourself. You're not my editor and you don't approve my blog titles. The substance of my stance is what matters: My point that many of the signups are just spammers - what is your argument AGAINST that? Obviously you have one or you wouldn't keept getting all freaked out over this. And yes, I have SEO experience - it informs my opinions. Deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Have you altered your blog a little, or have I made a mistake. The last time you posted the "new" theory, it was a theory as to why the spammers post. At least that's how I understood it from the previous spam thread. And you cited your time in seo, meaning that you know these things because you have some seo experience which, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with why new sign-ups don't stay. Seo experience doesn't ciome into anything if the topic is only about why sign-ups don't stay, and yet you saw fit to mention your seo experience. Therefore, the previous link to your blog was not about why sign-ups don't stay. Now the blog theory is about sign-ups not staying. Either I made a mistake, or you changed your blog, or we're talking about different blog posts of yours, which in this thread would be my mistake because I thought you were posting here about the link-spam idea. If I made a mistake in this thread (I'm sure I didn't in the previous one), in my defense, you did post a link to your blog in this spam thread, saying that you'd posted it many times before, which gave the impression that the blog post you linked to here was about link-spam and not about why new sign-ups don't stay. This thread is a moan about the floods of spam posts, which has nothing to do with why sign-ups don't stay. And no, I don't make "mentally deranged threats". In the deleted thread, you said that you'd worked in seo for 5 years, making out that you're an expert so what you wrote is right (about link spam, incidentally, and not about why sign-ups don't stay). I accept your seo expertise, of course. I replied to you by saying that I'd posted about the floods being link spam so your "new" theory wasn't new at all, and I stated my own experience, and reputation, in seo, which actually dwarfs yours. That's what I would have posted, and in more detail, if you'd played your seo experience as a trump card, like you attempted in the deleted thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenbro Utu Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Phil Deakins wrote: I'm sure they come with links but there aen't any around at the moment to check. I actually looked at one earlier today, and I'm certain it contained at least one link. I just had a look at one of the recent spammings just now, and it had no links. It did have phone numbers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 I just looked at a couple and I agree that they have no links. I'm certain the Mumbai ones came with links. The recent lot are different. They don't advertise whores in India. I can't imagine that they are looking for people to actually phone the numbers because anyone with half a brain would know that antagonising people, by flooding their forums, is highly unlikely to get anyone to phone. Perhaps this lot will come back (programmatically) in the near future to add links to any that survive the chop, like the single-post spammers do. If that's not the reason for the posts, the only other thing I can come up with is that it's someone venting a grudge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qie Niangao Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Yeah, I'm not sure what's going on, but a search of the email address in the posts turns up (deleted) spam in other forums including "The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot" (apparently a Ubisoft game), nVidia's geForce support, some World of Warcraft forum ("wowhead" -- maybe a fan site?), the opera browser, and even Tesla motors. I'm not forum-savvy enough to guess whether these are all Lithium-based, in which case the vendetta might be against Lithium itself... or maybe all the forums outsource administration to the same company of which the spammer is a disgruntled ex-employee... or maybe nothing like any of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Not to mention a load of Microsoft pages, Youtube stuff, and Facebook pages, etc. It's not targeting Lithium though, or those wouldn't have come up. Maybe it really is wanting people to phone, and maybe, just maybe, it does actually generate phone calls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perrie Juran Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 It's almost beginning to look like an all out war on the Forum.....The Spammers versus the Moderators Right now it looks like LL is losing the battle. (tagged for convenience) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 hehe. I don't think LL is losing. In order to lose you have to be in the fight, and LL is nowhere to be seen in this fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tex Monday Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Phil Deakins wrote: hehe. I don't think LL is losing. In order to lose you have to be in the fight, and LL is nowhere to be seen in this fight. Idon't know, Phil. They're fighting...but it's sort of like fighting weight loss with a diet pill in one hand and a box of donuts in the other.... :matte-motes-sunglasses-3: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenbro Utu Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Phil Deakins wrote: hehe. I don't think LL is losing. In order to lose you have to be in the fight, and LL is nowhere to be seen in this fight. I actually witnessed a "scuffle" last night. I noticed there was a single spam thread just posted, so I went to look for a link in it. By the time I clicked on it, I got the message that the thread no longer existed. It was whackamoled by a mod as it was posted. A minute later that happened yet again. So I waited, and I guess so did the spammer. I assume the mod logged out, but regardless, the flood came in full force about 15 minutes later... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenMichelle Lane Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Kenbro Utu wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: hehe. I don't think LL is losing. In order to lose you have to be in the fight, and LL is nowhere to be seen in this fight. I actually witnessed a "scuffle" last night. I noticed there was a single spam thread just posted, so I went to look for a link in it. By the time I clicked on it, I got the message that the thread no longer existed. It was whackamoled by a mod as it was posted. A minute later that happened yet again. So I waited, and I guess so did the spammer. I assume the mod logged out, but regardless, the flood came in full force about 15 minutes later... Something is wrong with that scenario - I witnessed it as well. The MOD usually kills the account 1st. There should not have been any more SPAM posts from that account. IMHO - One Voodoo SPAM post should be enough to have your account canceled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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