Another dandy. I ran the signature link through net tools. The server comes back as being located in Romania. Kinda figured as much since .bg is Bulgaria
https://www.huntingnet.com/forum/members/belahris.html

It appears as long as you can post links in your sig they just flock here like moths to a flame.
https://www.huntingnet.com/forum/mem...eeloffler.html

Funny how most of us real members don't have links in our signature but just about every spammer does.

Hi guys,

How much spam are we talking about? Since you are here a lot more than any admin, I thought I would get an idea of the volume. Are we talking a few spam posts a day? Or a lot more than that?

No site is spam free. We are an open community that anyone can sign up for. Spam comes with the territory. We have a lot of technology that eliminates 99% of the spam before you ever even see it! So, if there is a LOT coming through, maybe something is broken. But I can tell you, looking around, there is not a lot being reported. Which leads me to believe that it's working as designed. But you tell me -- what's the daily volume?

...also this is the wrong place for a thread dealing with technical issues or mod issues. If you keep posting stuff randomly around the site, nobody will see it (which is why this is the first reply from admin that you're seeing).

Please post in the technical support forum, thank you!

I'll move this there.

Well Ibobi if you look back up at post #4 you will see i reported 2 spammers that took more than 5 days before anyone did anything about them. I also know you were logged in after i reported them. Im certain i reported one of them twice.

Since that post i have listed several new profile links that are almost certainly spammers but they haven't posted yet. They just have "spam links" in their profile. I thought the ability to post signature links was somehow addressed before the last forum software update. Since they havent broken any rules (technically) and they haven't posted its pretty hard to report them.

We do not restrict new posters like this, because it has a chilling effect on engagement. The price is a little more spam, and it is worth it.

We already have some restrictions on posting links and photos as a new member. I will review them.
I will explore creating a new usergroup for newbies that does not have a signature. It's not as easy as you describe, and involved more than flipping a switch or two.
Overall, there might be a few things we can do to tighten the spam up a bit, but as has been pointed out, the reason you're noticing a relatively small amount of spam is because the forums are not very active right now, not because there is so much spam. As hunting season returns, you'll notice it less.

We don't gain anything from spammers signing up. But stopping them from signing up, while allowing real people to sign up, is a lot harder than you apparently think it is. And in the end, if this account doesn't end up posting any spam... who cares if they sign up? The only reason anyone ever looks at this profile page is because they're deliberately looking for fake accounts. By all means, feel free to point them out so they can be banned, but in the end a spam account that doesn't spam is meaningless.

As a moderator this is one of the more frustrating issues that we deal with .And it's been an issue for a while .

I see spam and I erase it. Members report spam, etc. But admin essentially tells us that it's not a big deal, or that it's normal.

I'm not smart enough to know what's normal or not. So I have to take admins word on that.

For the members: erasing spam is time consuming. I really do wish I could do more. But sometimes there really isn't enough time to go through all the threads and new members to try to catch them all.

You can easily spend over an hour a day doing this and still not keep up... I honestly don't have an hour a day to do that . But I try to do what I can.

C.I. can vouch for the time it takes if he returns to this thread .


-Jake

Yes it does take a lot of time to deal with spam on a daily basis. A year ago when I was a moderator the active spam was actually much worse. As alleyouper stated spam was landing in the whitetail section each night and often was responsible for several threads being started. You sign on click to whitetail and there would be new threads all at the top of the page. I would get my coffee and sit there and delete the threads and ban the users one at a time or in the case when it was a bot putting the same or similar threads in multiple forums I used some of the software tools to delete all the posts of that user then ban him or it in the case of a bot. I was spending more and more time each day eliminating them and finally decided that I needed to move on that it was taking far too much of my time. There were some good software fixes that over the course of last year appeared to help. Whatever they were did stop the many of the bogus threads from appearing in the site and I believe kept new members from having a sig line but I have noticed that since the software upgrade the spam appears at least to me to be creeping back in. As Paul said sometimes you do have to go looking for the spam and was pretty good at uncovering and removing them and to some extent still look around a bit even though it is no longer my job. My opinion is spam is something that if it stays at a certain level and is properly dealt with the general membership rarely notice it. Other sites I go to are similar to this one and it is rare to see spam even when looking with "trained eyes". I think spam is like a cancer and when allowed to remain attracts others and after a while the membership does notice and will start to react by posting about it. My advice is to eliminate sig lines for new members through software if possible and develop a system and guidelines for the mods to work together to catch the spammers who slip through. When something is reported there should be a system in place to ensure it is viewed and dealt with by either mods or admin. Nothing could be worse that to have a member take the time to point out a problem and have nobody get back to them or correct the issue. Good luck to all and I hope the site gets active again with spam all but eliminated.

Edit: I'll add this and then go fishing...one suggestion I will make is to develop a way for the mods to access the latest members who have signed up. To eliminate a spammer they have to be seen by a mod and right now only the last new member is visible at the bottom of the screen as well as current members still on line. If a spammer signs up at 2 am and another signs up at 3 am by the time any mod comes on line the first will be gone from view and possibly many others since they were replaced at the bottom newest member slot. Once they sign generally they access their profile a few times then sign off and come right back and sign on another membership and so on. If the mods had a tool to see any member who signed up in the last 24 hours they could quickly go through them and sift the spammers out. Right now if anyone clicks on the membership lists thousands of pages come up and they are listed 0 posts first but in alphabetical order. If you click posts it changes the filter and shows the top posters by count. If there was something that sorted by time of membership starting with the newest it would be easier for a mod to look at them and deal with spammers. Good luck