Sy Beck Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Innula Zenovka wrote: ....In any case, people here wouldn't necessarily need to know what's going on. If LL simply approached some of the saner regulars in these forums and asked them if they could help by hiding obvious spam, provided they didn't let on to anyone that's what they were doing, then all the rest of us would know is that LL seemed to be dealing with spam far more promptly than had been the case. I have had two posts deleted recently for allegedly breaching guidelines. In both cases I could clearly prove that neither had broken any LL guidelines and both times asked the moderator concerned to point out exactly where I had breached the guidelines. On both occasions I received no reply from either moderator concerned despite repeated requests for them to do so. So if your scenario was in operation and somebody did decide to go on a power trip who do I appeal to so as to rein them in or get them fired? Maybe your scenario is already operating in which case I would repeat my question. There was a time when there was interaction and discourse between Lindens, moderators and residents inworld and on the forums. Now it's anonymous entities who feel they know better, but don't care to explain why. I agree with you that LL care little about the forums and regard it as part of a modern day corporate business kit, but have little understanding of it as useful tool. If that is the case then I'd rather they scrap it and leave a rump customer account service as their web presence and we can all go off to SLU et al and have proper discussions there, with a very light hand of moderation. Let's face it, if even CEO Rodvik prefers to go chat and make announcements there and on other people's blogs rather than on his own forums then what's the point in persisting with it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innula Zenovka Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Sy Beck wrote: Innula Zenovka wrote: ....In any case, people here wouldn't necessarily need to know what's going on. If LL simply approached some of the saner regulars in these forums and asked them if they could help by hiding obvious spam, provided they didn't let on to anyone that's what they were doing, then all the rest of us would know is that LL seemed to be dealing with spam far more promptly than had been the case. I have had two posts deleted recently for allegedly breaching guidelines. In both cases I could clearly prove that neither had broken any LL guidelines and both times asked the moderator concerned to point out exactly where I had breached the guidelines. On both occasions I received no reply from either moderator concerned despite repeated requests for them to do so. So if your scenario was in operation and somebody did decide to go on a power trip who do I appeal to so as to rein them in or get them fired? Maybe your scenario is already operating in which case I would repeat my question. There was a time when there was interaction and discourse between Lindens, moderators and residents inworld and on the forums. Now it's anonymous entities who feel they know better, but don't care to explain why. I agree with you that LL care little about the forums and regard it as part of a modern day corporate business kit, but have little understanding of it as useful tool. If that is the case then I'd rather they scrap it and leave a rump customer account service as their web presence and we can all go off to SLU et al and have proper discussions there, with a very light hand of moderation. Let's face it, if even CEO Rodvik prefers to go chat and make announcements there and on other people's blogs rather than on his own forums then what's the point in persisting with it? The way it works at SLU is, as I understand it, if someone hides a post as spam, and suspends the author, then Cristiano, the site owner, is automatically informed, so he can review the decision next time he logs in. So, I guess, if someone over at SLU went nuts and started flagging my posts there, Cristiano would soon be able to rectify the situation. If he didn't, I would complain to him. As it is, he is very upfront about his moderation policy, and, if he removes a post from a thread, will explain there what he's done and why. I don't really see why it should be a problem here, unless we assume that LL would collude with people abusing their position. Maybe they would, but I don't really see it myself. And I can think of plenty of regulars -- admittedly, many of them regulars in the content creation forums rather than the more general ones -- I would certainly trust to behave responsibly if asked to remove any obvious spam they saw or that was reported to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sy Beck Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Well that's the point Innula. We all know Cristiano reviews them and people know who to appeal to? There is no Cristiano on the LL forums though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tex Monday Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Sy Beck wrote: Well that's the point Innula. We all know Cristiano reviews them and people know who to appeal to? There is no Cristiano on the LL forums though. I was actually thinking the same thing. The idea is great...except you said that Cristiano owns the site. LL owns this site and unless you let the mods know something is up, nothing really gets done. You would need someone like Cristiano to run the site (if LL would let him and, more importantly, if he would even WANT to). It seems like a nice idea on the surface, but I think we're just better off ignoring the spam and moving on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innula Zenovka Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 As I said, I don't really see why it should be a problem unless you assume the moderators are going to collude with people doing this irresponsibly. Say they ask me to do this. When one of the LL moderators logs in, they see a list of posts I've hidden and accounts I've suspended for spamming. The moderator quickly reviews them, flicking through saying, "she's suspended a one day old account posting about Mumbai hookers.. yep. She's suspended a one day old account.. Italian Soccer Matches.. yep. She's suspended Sy Beck because he disagreed with her?? What is this.. ?". Clearly it could be tweaked. Only let people suspend posts sent by accounts that haven't been active in the forums for more than a week, maybe. I dunno. I just think it's the sort of job best done by humans rather than automatic filters and captchas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charly Muggins Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Innula Zenovka wrote: When one of the LL moderators logs in, they see a list of posts I've hidden and accounts I've suspended for spamming. The moderator quickly reviews them, flicking through saying, "she's suspended a one day old account posting about Mumbai hookers.. yep. She's suspended a one day old account.. Italian Soccer Matches.. yep. She's suspended Sy Beck because he disagreed with someone?? yep. That's what currently happens.. yep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Innula Zenovka Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Charly Muggins wrote: Innula Zenovka wrote: When one of the LL moderators logs in, they see a list of posts I've hidden and accounts I've suspended for spamming. The moderator quickly reviews them, flicking through saying, "she's suspended a one day old account posting about Mumbai hookers.. yep. She's suspended a one day old account.. Italian Soccer Matches.. yep. She's suspended Sy Beck because he disagreed with someone?? yep. That's what currently happens.. yep. No, it can't be what currently happens. At the moment, no one but a moderator can remove his posts or suspend him, surely? If you're saying that because, at the moment, moderators apparently behave arbitrarily and unfairly, there's no reason to suppose they wouldn't allow people to get away with abusing the system, I'm not sure. I mean, it's a judgement call most of the time if a post transgresses various guidelines. But there's not usually any doubt about whether a post -- or at least the ones we're talking about -- is spam or not. If a moderator sees someone is clearly going way outside his or her remit by removing posts that, whatever else might be wrong with them, clearly aren't spam, I suspect they'd try to put a stop to it. I would, whatever my biases, because it's the sort of thing you can't really justify if a superior asks you about why you let it happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake1 Nightfire Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Storm Clarence wrote: Drake1 Nightfire wrote: Charly Muggins wrote: CAPTCHAs are easily circumvented by professionals. Even though it usually takes me about five attempts before I get it right. Bayesian spam filtering is much more effective, immediate and doesn't require the intervention of a part-time contractor living on the Pacific Rim who has to be woken up, distracted from their manga soap opera, or taken away from changing diapers. That would block honest threads about escorts in SL though. You may be thinking this wrong. The whole idea of applying intelligent software within any framework is to take the responsibility away from human hands i.e., the mods, what you suggested. An intelligent engine would recognize the 'difference' in posts. And it would continue to learn. 1. all they would have to do is program the bot to make an innocous thread and then reply to it with the spam. 2. There is always a way around security programs.. someone wil always find a way to crack it. 3. Talking about LL and intellegent in the same thread will crack the universe.. please stop.:matte-motes-big-grin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Clarence Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 How about writing a few lines of code to restrict/limit, per user, "start thread" - to something like 3 over a 24hr. period. I can almost guarantee that no forum user starts 3 threads in a day, anyway. This would not adversely interfere with anyone's forum experience; except for the spammer(s) of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dresden Ceriano Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 The last thing we need here is some sort of automated system to prevent spammers, that actually works. I welcome the spammers and, in fact, wish there were more. The busier the mods are getting rid of spam, the less time they'll have for removing legitimate posts and handing out warnings for no apparent reason. ...Dres *knows it wouldn't actually work out that way* (but I can dream, can't I?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sy Beck Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Innula Zenovka wrote: As I said, I don't really see why it should be a problem unless you assume the moderators are going to collude with people doing this irresponsibly. Say they ask me to do this. When one of the LL moderators logs in, they see a list of posts I've hidden and accounts I've suspended for spamming. The moderator quickly reviews them, flicking through saying, "she's suspended a one day old account posting about Mumbai hookers.. yep. She's suspended a one day old account.. Italian Soccer Matches.. yep. She's suspended Sy Beck because he disagreed with her?? What is this.. ?". Clearly it could be tweaked. Only let people suspend posts sent by accounts that haven't been active in the forums for more than a week, maybe. I dunno. I just think it's the sort of job best done by humans rather than automatic filters and captchas. I honestly don't think that LL do any overview of the moderation of the forums at all and that it is all contracted out. But, that's just my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pussycat Catnap Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 I spoke about this at the beginning of the year on my blog: https://catnapkitty.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/new-theory-on-sl-signups-that-never-seem-to-join-theyre-forum-spam-bots/ - CAPTCHA's work, partially. It took what was for us several thousand accounts being created per day to store future spam bots into our database, down to under a small handfull - small enough that I was able to manually monitor for which new accounts were real or fake. The problem is that a CAPTCHA system, if in place for SL, would result in them having to 'realize' how many people are actually joining SL every day. I would wager than most people that sign up for SL go on to become regular active users. That we aren't seeing a massive drop off at all once once they get inworld. Just a somewhat drop off as they wander on to other free services. But it looks 'sexier' to say millions sign up every second, and then pretend that its only because the users are such lame losers that people quit... - You can then go to the board/investors with "crazy Idea #12" as a solution... like say... "lets make this thing for business enterprise." When the real solution is just to accept that yes - you are only moderately popular, but hey: the service is actually working for the people who are real that join it... and the biggest problem to that service is your own meddling and inability to solve issues that users really only learn of after they've been here about 9 months to a year and a half... things like endemic lag (learn of quickly, but takes time to wear folks down), tier, scripting and building limits, etc... So yeah... CAPTCHA's work... but then LLs would have to face looking in the mirror and seeing who's really staring back at them. Case in point: after I knocked out the spam bot problem where I used to work... they were not happy to learn how unpopular their forums really were. The CEO loved the forums, but I had good data to show that half our active users were really him... and that we hadn't lost once single real user... I was told to stop mentioning the removal of spammers in meetings, because when a forum goes from having half a million "active users" down to about 3000 in the span of a week, its kind of embarrassing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perrie Juran Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Personally speaking I don't like any restrictions up to and including Captchas beyond the current time limit for posts that is in use to deter "flooding." While the SPAM has been annoying and the current stuff is "disgusting" it is only as annoying as you allow it to be. Kind of like the ads so many like to complain about. The use of "intelligent filters' would be best practices. They might occasionally cause me to need to rephrase a post but if they did there would be a high likelihood the post needed rephrasing anyways in order to comply with the Community Standards. Most of us know how to work around those anyways. After all, who doesn't know what "WTF" stands for? I do agree that the spammers should all DIAF with an UFIA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 Innula Zenovka wrote: I realise things can go, and have, in the past, gone, badly wrong with Resident Moderators, but all I can say is that Cristiano's system seems to work. This may surprise people who know SLU primarily by reputation, but... If people over there had the power to do anything other than remove posts that were obviously spam, then I agree, it would be potentially a disaster. But, as it is, everyone knows that the only thing anyone other than Cristiano can do is remove obvious spam, and people trust him to run his policy fairly. That might, I suppose, partly be because he's running the forum because he wants to, and presumably is monetising it somehow. In contrast, these forums sometimes feel as if they're there simply because LL feel they're expected to provide the damn things. In any case, people here wouldn't necessarily need to know what's going on. If LL simply approached some of the saner regulars in these forums and asked them if they could help by hiding obvious spam, provided they didn't let on to anyone that's what they were doing, then all the rest of us would know is that LL seemed to be dealing with spam far more promptly than had been the case. I can't really argue against you points, Innula. I've no idea if this software allows for such a low-powered moderator. I would be very much against fully fledged resident moderators though, and I am very much in favour of putting a CAPTCHA in the SL account creation process - not in the forum. If it stops some spam, then it's well worth doing, even if it doesn't stop all of it. Anything that reduces the spam is well worth doing, and adding a CAPTCHA is very very easy. There's another thing that would stop some of the spam, and proper forum software has been doing for many years. It's a timeout so that posts can't be edited after a certain amount of time has elapsed - 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever. An example of the type of spam it would stop has just resurfaced. It's where a post is made (usually it's a new thread but not necessarily so), and later, when it's scrolled down out of plain sight, it is edited to contain links to other websites. Mostly, that type of spam is never spotted because it doesn't usually resurface. It stays down/hidden and the search spiders index it. I've no idea if this software is able to set a timeout on editing posts, but decent forum software has been doing it for many years. If this software can do it, it should definitely be turned on. Not turning it on is very irresponsible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charly Muggins Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 I have an idea. Why not use the existing spelling checker as a filter to identify spam. Any post where the checker identifies more than, say, five errors would be deleted. That should cover 99% of the spam. Erm . . . hold that idea; it would also eliminate about 80% of normal posts. As you were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charly Muggins Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 Actually, now I have had a little time to reconsider, it IS still a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 lol. I was about to reply that it would prevent 99% of genuine posts too, and then I read that you'd covered that It would certainly get rid of all the posts by those whose first language isn't English Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinity Yazimoto Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 OMG !!!! now they spam for escort girls from France !! http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Gorgeous-Paris-Cannes/m-p/2116875 WTF ???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 You'll have to move to Paris. There's good money to be made there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinity Yazimoto Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 Phil Deakins wrote: You'll have to move to Paris. There's good money to be made there indeed Phil... on top its surely less hot than here... :smileyvery-happy: /me starts to get ready all packages in prevision of a moving to Paris ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinity Yazimoto Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 well, on the other hand... this spam looks really less exotic than the mumbai one.... The poster has post it only in 2 subforums (make friends and general discussion) with a tittle really less blatant.. maybe its not a bot.... It still doesnt have nothing to do here.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 They may have posted by hand, but... The auto-posts that are most likely to be successful are those that don't get right in the users' faces - like the Paris ones. The 'mumbai' type would fill many pages of threads if they weren't stopped in their tracks. No active forum would let the posts stay so I can only come up with 2 reasons for them:- 1. In the hope that search engine spiders will crawl the forum's pages before the posts have been removed. 2. Many forums are inactive but they still get crawled. Perhaps the target is those forums, but they post to as many forums as they can, hoping that some are inactive and the posts won't be removed. But, even then, the creators of search engines are not stupid, and they won't index all of the repeated links on a page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Deakins Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 Trinity Yazimoto wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: You'll have to move to Paris. There's good money to be made there indeed Phil... on top its surely less hot than here... :smileyvery-happy: /me starts to get ready all packages in prevision of a moving to Paris ... /me starts packing too - to welcome you to Paris, and to audition you for the job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trinity Yazimoto Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 Phil Deakins wrote: Trinity Yazimoto wrote: Phil Deakins wrote: You'll have to move to Paris. There's good money to be made there indeed Phil... on top its surely less hot than here... :smileyvery-happy: /me starts to get ready all packages in prevision of a moving to Paris ... /me starts packing too - to welcome you to Paris, and to audition you for the job So finally, the post about Paris call girls was yours ???? So if we are talking about audition and call girl.. i think the first audition will be for your budget :smileyvery-happy: Im pretty expensive :smileywink: But im glad to know you ll be at the airport to welcome me when i will arrive.. Just be prepared to hear my unique accent when i will talk to you in english :smileyvery-happy: This one is also priceless :smileywink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethelwine Posted August 2, 2013 Share Posted August 2, 2013 This is really tiresome and beyond a joke now especially if you are on a mobile phone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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