Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Don't respond to spammers!

Guys, please don't respond to spammers on the spam thread. It makes it so I can't delete the thread. Your comments may seem funny, but they're making it a pain in the butt for me to delete them.

Sorry, my bad...

What did you say?

We are not the NSA or CIA. Because our "hits" are far less in quantity than what our government monitors, our success at eliminating illegitimate users probably has better statistics than government sites.

In general, these are sophisticated organizations targeting us.

We have a lot of tools at our disposal, and very alert moderators/administrators who watch this site, day and night. I'm not sure why these crazies keep trying to penetrate our site.

When you report what might be an illegitimate post via the "NOTIFY" button at the bottom of a post, all moderators and administrators get a personal e-mail regarding it. Usually, one or more of us responds pretty quickly to help ban the entire IP address range encompassing the geographical area making the post.

I can't think of a single banned IP address that served 99.9% of the Pond Boss community. Most come from small geographical areas of the world, including their aliases in other parts of their world.

If your are legitimate, don't worry about joining us.

If you are a spammer, or worse, don't waste your time.

Regards,
Catmandoo

Would it not be simpler to try and avoid the spammers altogether? If a mod has to nix a spammer once they're here, then why not eliminate them before they can post? I'm talking about doing away with the "sign up and go", scenario we have now. It would mean that someone would have to approve all pending membership requests, but I bet it would stop most, if not all, of these attempts.

I have seen the time over at BBG, and not very long ago at that, where I would nuke 50-60 spammers in a day's time....and that was just my totals, not including the other mods. If BigBluegill allowed access as easy as it is here, it would've gotten out of control real quick.

Just a few, simple questions that need to be answered in order to gauge authenticity. As an example, you would be amazed at the number of people who have caught 2.5 lb Bluegills, or answer the questions in a string of random letters.... It's not hard to tell who's on the up and up, and who you're better off without.

These are not likely humans spamming, they are bots [computer programs] that spider the web and hammer on any avenue that lacks appropriate security measures. Simple fixes exist to prevent bots from posting. Bob/Dwight can contact UBB [PB forum software provider] and have additional layer of security implemented which would assist significantly.

Nebraska is the home of Spam, so don't quite know why Bruce is complaining.

You can remove most of the spam by shoving a toothbrush down your throat with various dental pastes and topicals.

Just make sure you have a really good strainer before it goes where it will. Never know how fine you chewed it up, till you look at it.

JKB wrote: "Never know how fine you chewed it up, till you look at it."

While I don't want to encourage you, those are some uniquely sage words! And I think that the mystique about it only stems from when you think..."dang, I knew I chewed that up more." I've long given up those days mind you.

The reason Bruce is saying don't respond to spammers is:

If a "member" starts a post and it is replied to, we can't just deleted his/her/it's post without also deleting all of the responses.

Plus I would bet that their programs may be able to tell if the post stays up long enough to or gets a reply. Best to just use the notify button and let an adm or mod remove them.

I just tested out the notify button, 5 times!

You'll only get immediate response if one of the moderators is online and checking their inbox. Then it takes a few minutes to react.

I think Bruce and I tag teamed them.

I didn't get the notifications.