Oldtimr

There is a new one this morning from India in the whitetail deer forum.

Bocajnala

Post was deleted and he was banned.

-Jake

elkman30

Good post champlain islander with lots of good information. It sounds like you guys definition of spammers is different from admins. If I understood admin Ibobis earlier posts correctly, admin is only worried about spammers who join and then post spam. If a spammer from India signs up, puts a link in their signature that's obviously spam but never posts, it's all good. And then you get those member lists with thousands of spam members who never make a single post but have spam links in their signatures. From what ibobi said, that doesn't hurt huntingnet. If that's true, then why do those spammers create those member accounts? What's in it for them? And does it hurt huntingnet's brand or make no difference? This is one of those situations where it doesn't quite make sense on the surface and you know nthere's got to be more to the story The spammers have an angle otherwise they wouldn't be wasting their time creating thousands of accounts with signature links. So what is huntingnet's angle?

Oldtimr

Good job Boca!

Champlain Islander

All good questions elk and me not being in the internet forum business I certainly don't have the answers. But....a reasonable person would surmise that the Internet forums are there as a business to make money plain and simple. HNI doesn't sell camping gear or sneakers like Dick's Sporting goods but they do sell advertising. The site has a theme of all things hunting so it is natural to assume that hunters, gun lovers and outdoor people in general would like to come here. Like GM said several posts back the bigger and more successful the forum makes it more attractive for advertisers. More attractive... more money is needed to place ads. Now I ask you as a possible business owner would you rather advertise on a theme forum site like this one when it is filled with active people posting regularly with a growing membership all adding to the attractiveness of the site or a stagnant forum site with few regular posters but a huge membership comprised of bot filled names. I assume when an ad pops up and me as a member sees it and is curious about the product or service HNI gets revenue from it or when I buy something it links back and gives HNI money. Either way that is the way I figure it has to work. No clicks on the ads and really no benefit for the seller. If all they are looking for is exposure like in a roadside bill board then a large forum with active users would generate the looks and exposure that they want. No matter how I look at it the spambot names that are signing up all day and all night don't really amount to much other than grow the member roster. Any advertiser who spends money on putting their name out there would, I assume, investigate the probability that lots of people will get the message. When a forum site averages 25 new posts each day it tells me I wouldn't want to rely on the fact that many people would see my ads. Years past this site would have thousands of new posts each day. The membership lists are much much larger now but real posting has all but died out. Perhaps there is a threshold that when exceeded the spam makes it not attractive to the people looking at posting along the sites theme and then it becomes more attractive to the spammers. When the HNI light comes on who is drawn in... outdoors people or spammers? I know the answer and it didn't have to turn out this way.

ibobi

The answer is, it doesn't cost spammers anything to create a spam profile. Maybe they plan to spam post with it later, maybe they think just putting a link in the profile is going to get them something. What, I have no clue. But again -- who cares? Spam profile that nobody sees unless someone comes looking for it? Not a problem.

I've been asking if anyone has an idea of what the daily volume of spam posts is right now, because it seems really low to me. Yes, the ones that are made do stand out more right now because it's summer and the forums are quiet, and 1 spam post in 10 real posts stands out more than 1 in 100, which is more like what we see in the fall.

If someone wants to say there is a ton of spam posts, I'll look into it -- but I am not seeing it, nor am I seeing a lot of reported spam posts. If I'm wrong, let me know.

Champlain Islander

You aren't wrong. I looked at all today's posts and didn't see any evidence of spam on the 20 some odd posts which include yours and mine on this thread. With 254,550 members one would think a few more would be posting. I guess it must be because it is summer.
EDIT: Less than a day later we now have 254,571 members according to the stats at the bottom of the main page. We grew by 21 members since yesterday. One would think they would want to start posting.

Bocajnala

C.I., as you know.... We've been through this dance before not that long ago as moderators.

There is a disconnect somewhere between moderators and admin on these phantom members signing up. As I'm sure you remember, when we were watching for these profiles to sign up it wasn't uncommon for us to delete 5-10 a day. Easily. And that was just watching the new sign ups... Not even searching the member list. You could probably spend a year searching the member lists.

Mods spent allot of time trying to get these banned, only to be told that they are a non issue, or that they didn't matter unless they post.

I still post new members as I see them sign up to a moderator thread and admin erases them. But that's really only a few every week, as I just don't have the time to be online more. But, as you see, according to admin... These don't matter or effect anything unless they are actively posting spam in the forums.

Even though the "membership" continues to rise daily.... I wouldn't expect the active posters to continue to rise. This of course is old news to you. As you've been through the song and dance previously.

I did see one spam post in the fishing forum today. If anybody noticed anything else let me know and I'll take care of it.

-Jake

sthirunavu

Hello everyone. I am new here. I am from Pollachi, South India. I am happy to be here with you all.

elkman30

That's almost like baiting the trap there Boca...