Greg Smith
Mongoose
There's at least 50 threads in the Off Topic section that are spam.
Spam/advert junk threads
- Thread starter Zarathustra Suicune
- Start date
We seem to have slowed them down, at least. Still looking into it.
Zarathustra Suicune
Mongoose
I can't understand why people do this, all it does is generate anger at whoever is doing it/the products advertised.
Zarathustra Suicune said:
Because it generates something more than anger. Specifically: Money.
You think they wouldn't do it if it wouldn't actually give money? It doesn't have to have high chance of success since expenses of it is so tiny. One in ten thousand would make 'em filthy rich...
Zarathustra Suicune said:
It's to do with search engine ranking.
My technical understanding of it is rudimentary, but to put it simply:
By mentioning (spamming) the words/website addresses in what are seen as "valid" posts on forums that are regarded as being respectable by the search engines, the words/websites gain enhanced positioning further up the search engine results page when people search for that word/website.
The fact that you can see their spam is an merely an unavoidable by-product, you aren't the intended recipient of the message, the spam is intended for the search engine web crawler bots.
If the spam is left unchecked, eventually, the (smarter?) search engine web crawlers mark the whole forum as a spam source and stop using it for calculating search results. This would effect ALL references made on the forum, not just the spam, so it really needs to be sorted, pronto.
Then theres the theory that antivirus companies pay hackers/spammers money to do this so there's a reason to buy the anti-virus which makes as much sense as somebody who is crazy enough to think sitting around doing this is fun. Its a sad world out there, I think ill stay in here and play space ships.
A variant on the anti-virus one is a pop-up which says your PC may be infected by a virus, click on the button for a free scan. Clicking on the button doesn't scan your PC, it infects it, and then the company charges you money to remove the malware they just installed on your PC.
The one about paying people is also true, in another way. One reason captchas aren't reliable is that some companies pay peanuts to someone in a third-world company to register on forums and fill in the captcha - you can't tell the spambot from a human because the spambot is a human.
Then, of course, there's the theory that there's no such thing as bad publicity, which is also behind any number of controversial or outright offensive TV or poster adverts as well as spamming.
And the idea that inconveniencing several million people in the hope that one or two of them will buy your product is also a reason for spam - probably the original reason, dating back to when spam was just junk e-mail and not forum pollution.
Incidentally, spam (lower case except for the first letter of the start of a sentence) is what we're talking about. SPAM (all upper case regardless of position in a sentence) is Hormel's meat approximation. They used to have a bit in their website explaining this, though I can't find it now, but basically the full upper case version is their copyright. However, I don't think they've sent lawyers after anyone who posted the wrong version in a forum, so you have less to worry about there than if you forget to put a space between "Star" and "Fleet". :lol:
The one about paying people is also true, in another way. One reason captchas aren't reliable is that some companies pay peanuts to someone in a third-world company to register on forums and fill in the captcha - you can't tell the spambot from a human because the spambot is a human.
Then, of course, there's the theory that there's no such thing as bad publicity, which is also behind any number of controversial or outright offensive TV or poster adverts as well as spamming.
And the idea that inconveniencing several million people in the hope that one or two of them will buy your product is also a reason for spam - probably the original reason, dating back to when spam was just junk e-mail and not forum pollution.
Incidentally, spam (lower case except for the first letter of the start of a sentence) is what we're talking about. SPAM (all upper case regardless of position in a sentence) is Hormel's meat approximation. They used to have a bit in their website explaining this, though I can't find it now, but basically the full upper case version is their copyright. However, I don't think they've sent lawyers after anyone who posted the wrong version in a forum, so you have less to worry about there than if you forget to put a space between "Star" and "Fleet". :lol:
lastbesthope
Mongoose
Just deleted three threads from OT section
LBH
LBH
Greg Smith
Mongoose
Thanks LBH & Matt. The boards are looking good.
lastbesthope
Mongoose
There's one in Board/Card games I can't nuke
LBH
LBH
lastbesthope
Mongoose
lastbesthope said:
Ignore that, it seems my mod rights have been extended.
I have nuked it, but the point is it was there after the changes
LB H
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
They are back everywhere.....
Zarathustra Suicune
Mongoose
And not even in english....
