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Not sure what is going on but.....

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Not sure what is going on but.....

Old 09-05-2018, 02:16 PM
  #101  
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See my answers inline.

Originally Posted by Bocajnala
I think what most of us don't understand....

And yes, as mods we've had this discussion multiple times with admin over the past year or more....

Why are all the spammers signing up? They have to be generating revenue somewhere... Either for themselves, or for HNI. Someone is making money off these spammers somehow . Otherwise they wouldn't exist. Nobody is creating these accounts for free . Nobody is creating programs to create these fake accounts for free. Someone is getting paid somewhere due to these accounts.

Spammers show up everywhere on the Internet. They were here in years past when HN was busier. They are here now. It's a fact of life, especially for forums. Why are they here? Because the Internet. And yes, the accounts cost literally nothing to create. Pay a guy $10 in 2005 in India, he writes a program that finds forums and makes spam profiles. Turn it on. Never turn it off. Voila. I am sure there is or was some model for moneymaking associated with these accounts. Who knows what it is, and if it is not bothering our community, what does it matter?

Which leads us to the issue, at least as I see it.... Is this a hunting website or a spam spot to generate revenue for somebody? And it's further complicated by the fact that many of these names have sexual content attached to it. Including links to probable por**ographic material as well as esKorrt services etc.

This is a hunting site. If you don't specifically go looking for those spammer profiles, you will not see them. Nobody is looking for them except a handful of people in this thread. I have no idea why. I get that you'd prefer they were not there. So would I. But if you think the technology exists to locate them en masse and prevent them from registering or to automatically delete them en masse, I assure you it does not. Again, it's a fact of life. Joel and I have manually deleted hundreds, if not thousands of them. Do you think I would be doing that if I could click a button and do it? We bulk-deleted over 40,000 profile we identified as probable spam. I didn't really want to do that, because there were undoubtedly real users caught in that web. But we did it for you guys, because of threads like this. Not because those profiles were doing any harm. Just because you asked. And we did it. We can't keep doing that, because the more we take guesses at who is a spammer, and the more accounts we bulk delete, the more real people get their accounts deleted.

The claim that these profiles are getting hundreds of views is incorrect, as I have pointed out many times. The VB software does not track such things accurately. NOBODY is coming to Huntingnet to look at people's profiles! Spammers or anyone else's! Why the heck would they? What possible point could there be in doing so? Google is certainly not sending people to profiles with adult content. No way. It's a simple counting glitch by the software. You can believe that or not.


CI and myself, as well as other mods, have previously discussed the moral aspect of continuing to serve and support a site that is hosting or allowing these types of profiles. Because to be honest, it bothers me. Especially when we searched for and deleted hundreds of profiles, spent hours of time, only to be told that it's "not a problem as long as they don't post on the actual forum" even though some of these profiles had hundreds of page visits.

We do not allow them. Again, find a site that has no spam? There are none. Certainly not community sites that are literally designed so that people will sign up, create a profile, and share information. We do not allow spam. We do everything we can to stop it. And yet, it happens anyway. If you're looking for a morally-motivated action, remember that there are thousands of hunters here, looking for real information and hobby friends. You can choose to help them, or you can choose to balk at some spam profiles that nobody sees unless they deliberately come looking for them. Which is the moral choice? I leave that to you. But I know that I'm going to keep deleting profiles that are brought to my attention. And deleting the rare spam posts that are actually made in the forums.

Now, to admins credit.... They've deleted accounts that we have brought to their attention . I have a thread on the mod forum with over 200 posts full of spammer accounts that we had admin permanently delete . Ibobi has deleted hundreds of accounts for us through this thread .

Thank you!

I guess I don't understand why a site with such low traffic, shows a membership of over 230,000 members. And why some of these spam members, who never post, still have many views on their profile . Who is viewing their profile and how are they getting to it? And what is HNI getting out of #1 all these members #2 all these profile views etc.

HN didn't always have the relatively moderate traffic it has today (and lest you think nobody comes here -- "moderate" means many hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors, especially during peak fall season). The vast majority of those profiles are people who signed up years ago. And we get more signups every day (real ones, and some spambots). HN gets absolutely nothing from the spambot profiles or their posts. If we did, why would we delete them like cockroaches every time we see them? I think there is a very odd conspiracy theory operating here on some level, and I assure you, as with nearly all things in this universe, the simplest explanation is the truth: spam happens, we hate it, and it's hard to 100% eradicate. That's it.

-Jake
Thanks Jake
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Old 09-05-2018, 04:24 PM
  #102  
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Originally Posted by Oldtimr
It used to be if we contacted a mod, the post was deleted and the poster banned. Anyone can look at the screen name of the spammers and see that they are not hunters or fishermen but spammers especially if they are from India or Pakistan or the Baltic countries. Why is it that Cal could tell the difference between a spammer and a legitimate poster and no one else can? Why is it that good mods have quit? Something is rotten in Denmark, and it is not the cheese.
I was away for some training from the first week of July until second week of August . I posted that I would be away and that I wouldn't be signing on very much.

This caused some delay on deleting spam. Especially with Cal's absence as well.

Then we had a baby born on August 17. We went home on August 19th And then I spent most of the first week and part of the second week in a prolonged hospital stay . Again this caused me not to be very active on the site .

As to deleting spammer accounts: as mods we did. Hundreds of them. But we've continually been told that they aren't an issue. Why spend hours of our time trying to delete things that supposedly aren't an issue and that the ownership doesn't seem to care about.

As for recognizing spammers, all mods, as well as members should generally be able to tell the difference . You may be referencing the member that flags brought up. My guess (and this is only a guess) is that Cal was simply able to tell by posting style primarily. Personally, I don't know the political forum posters well enough to determine that. I PMed CI and asked if he knew how Cal was able to tell and he mentioned the things that I already knew (such as IP addresses) but wasn't able to specifically recall how cal was able to know for sure .

As for mods stepping down. That's for them to reply to. But I know the spam, and the time spent dealing with it played a role for some.

As I said before. If you have an issue, if you see a spammer, a rules infraction, please PM me. I see those before I see the reported posts. And I'll always reply to PMs first thing when I logon. OT I know someyo PMed me before I'm just saying this for everyone else.

PM me. I may not get it right away, but when I logon that's the first thing I'll deal with .
-Jake
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Old 09-05-2018, 04:40 PM
  #103  
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Ibobi,

I readily admit that I'm not smart enough to understand how all of this works. I've chosen to stick around and keep plugging away doing what I can. that was an attempt to summarize what I think the primary concerns are for mods and members .

There seems to be a growing number of unhappy users. Partially due to spam, lack of moderator presence, and slow response time to reported threads .

As for response time, when I see the emails I check on it. A few times it has been there for a few days without any response . But most of the time it's been dealt with by the time I get to the email. I don't think a day or two is a long time when mods are volunteering time . Especially during the summer when many of us are busy doing things. But I agree that it could be faster as well and it's probably frustrating for a user to report a thread, and then see it's still there there next day.

-Jake
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Old 09-05-2018, 04:49 PM
  #104  
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Originally Posted by Bocajnala
Ibobi,

I readily admit that I'm not smart enough to understand how all of this works. I've chosen to stick around and keep plugging away doing what I can. that was an attempt to summarize what I think the primary concerns are for mods and members .

There seems to be a growing number of unhappy users. Partially due to spam, lack of moderator presence, and slow response time to reported threads .

As for response time, when I see the emails I check on it. A few times it has been there for a few days without any response . But most of the time it's been dealt with by the time I get to the email. I don't think a day or two is a long time when mods are volunteering time . Especially during the summer when many of us are busy doing things. But I agree that it could be faster as well and it's probably frustrating for a user to report a thread, and then see it's still there there next day.

-Jake
I am also responding, monday-friday during business hours, same day or sooner. The response time may be slow in that if there isn't a moderator on and it is the weekend, it doesn't get handled until Monday morning... but with SO FEW spam threads being posted in the first place, it can't possibly be such a big complaint. Literally, there isn't even a new spam thread once a WEEK! I have said it beofre and I will say it again: I run 20 online communities. The spam on HN is *very low*.

Lastly, I have never had a complaint about how fast or how well the mod team is doing something here. Quite the contrary, I'm very happy with the team, though like others I wish there were more of us doing this, even with relatively slow posting (it will pick up in a couple of weeks!). If you have any suggestions for active members who might make good mods and want to try it out, let me know!

Thank you again Jake,

Paul
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Old 09-06-2018, 07:46 AM
  #105  
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Is it really that hard to make a user group promotion based on post count within newer versions of vbulletin? It was fairly simple in older versions or by adding a module.
https://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=239651

https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/...oup_promotions

Last edited by Gm54-120; 09-06-2018 at 07:49 AM.
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Old 09-06-2018, 12:04 PM
  #106  
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It's not that it is hard (I assume not, but I'm not a developer), it's getting time for tech to do what needs to be done in a non-urgent situation. We will have them get to it -- the ticket is active -- it's just a question of them finding the time.
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Old 09-08-2018, 05:40 AM
  #107  
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Here's an interesting one. Spamming the forum, with current posts. But shows a post count of zero

-Jake
Attached Thumbnails Not sure what is going on but.....-screenshot_20180908-093255.png  

Last edited by Bocajnala; 09-08-2018 at 07:59 AM.
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Old 09-08-2018, 07:57 AM
  #108  
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Obviously something isn't working right.
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Old 09-10-2018, 11:49 AM
  #109  
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The parts of the software that count things are not always accurate to the minute. Some processes only run hourly/daily/etc.
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Old 09-27-2019, 08:27 PM
  #110  
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Originally Posted by IBanna
Hi Sea Wolf,

My apologies, I overlooked that part. As you say there is no unsubscribe button on that email. I have brought this issue to my department. Thank you for your patience during this time.


Your personal information is not being sold. We can reassure you that we have the best security practices implemented in the forum.
When you have literally 1000s of bot names registered on this forum i find it hard to believe your security is upto par. Tons of those names contain very questionable links in the profiles. Yet you guys allow it to happen daily.

Last edited by Gm54-120; 09-27-2019 at 08:29 PM.
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