Why are the spammers/bots allowed here?
 

Just curious? They are very obvious to many of us old timers and surely someone is reporting
them? If not, should I or someone start?

Edited: Here is the list compiled so far ... I'll start with one from a few months back:

Dannyjewelry
jessyrich
Maddygobi
KilluaOreo784
richardgravner
roselewis

And that Glen guy ... he's the worst :D

There are more, but this is a start....

I've never noticed them be "allowed".

There are several on here right now that have been pointed out by several posters (but maybe have not been reported). That's why I started this thread....

I'm assuming that if they respond to threads but don't actually post links to other sites, then there's not a good reason to ban them.

If you create a login and start posting, and every post includes links to external sites, I suspect that'll get you banned.

If you create a login and just start posting, but don't actually post links to sites, then you're just another poster. Several of them seem to do that. Which is weird, are they playing the long game? Or maybe they'll get on and have a few innocuous posts and only post a link every 5 or 10 posts. I don't know, it's weird.

I don't report them if they aren't posting outside links or hidden images or something.

They seem to be building up post numbers by making inane comments on various threads. Gotta confess, I never reported one...maybe I should.

They typically show up, revive an ancient thread or two, add nothing really, and have just a few posts.

Methinks they return much later, after the thread has aged a bit..... that's when the links, sometimes invisible, are edited in .... that's my guess.

The few that are here now are contributing nada ....

They go back and edit the posts 2 or 3 weeks later. They only want the webcrawlers to see the links, they don't care if *you* see the links or not. They're just as happy having the links stay far away from the front page.

An example...

jessyrich posted on 11/11, I already had them pegged as a spammer and replied as such. I quoted their entire post, as did others. Yet, you can see that the post was edited on 11/29, where lots of key words and a link were added. Classic spammer.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/1129533-how-many-pullups-can-you-do-4.html#post11845619

So like in that pullup thread, is that spammer a real person or a bot?
If it’s a bot and is somehow doing that automatically on multiple webpages with little or no human input, that’s pretty impressive. That particular spammer/bot has 32 posts here, and they seem coherent and in context with the threads they are in.
If it’s a real person, that seems like a lot of work for a few spam posts. Reading the threads, coming up with decent sounding responses, going back and editing to put the links in, etc.
Anyways, while waiting for response I think I’ll go enjoy some of the best online poker at http://best-poker-yeponline.com thank you.

Years ago "Nostatic" said that this is our forum and therefore we should look after it.

In other words if you think a post is spam you need to report it to the moderators.
- They're not online 24/7 so it may take a while before anything is done.

Jessy, you just might be legit, based upon a couple of peeks at your posting history and high post count now ;). If so, welcome to PPOT and continue to contribute to the nonsense here .... we need more ladies to participate too! The ones I started this thread about are around and almost certainly real spammers ... they are easy to spot also and only make 2-3 posts then Poof .... gone like Vash ;).

Years ago, every morning at this time, one (likely a real person) would post on several threads and it was obvious.... I used to report them ... this was maybe 12-15 yesrs ago, but then it ceased after some time.

If the mods want to clean this nonsense up & out, it would be fairly easy imo with a bit of help from the rest of the flock pointing them out, and then a PM exchange with a mod to "trust but verify".

Say the word Seahawk, and I'll post the current ones in the OP or start another theead. It's not my intent to chase away a legitimate newcomer, and I called it "incorrectly" recently on a "racer" thread that Milt/Zeke set me straight on :).

Thanks!

I “frequently” will use the report button when I see a obvious spammer to let the moderators know and then I post that I reported them by name so the moderators don’t get a whole bunch of alerts.

Seems like they go in spurts. I get up early, so usually see the overseas spam before most people.

PM Matt.

report them

The newest twist is invisible micro dot links, more on phones than here but it's just a matter of time

Paul, years ago, I would use the icon on a spammer's post to report their daily appearances.... does Matt see those?

Because if we all start pointing out this BS and proper action is taken, it will cease .... I hope ;).

Or is a direct PM to Matt what we should use?

....and does Pelican care these days?

KC - they care and Matt is excellent. I just do not feel comfortable with certain actions here and defer to Matt and Z...I start mucking about and we could lose the power grid.

Matt lives in CT so he is on East Coast time...direct PM is good. That is what I do.

^^^^ Perfect! If just a few of us start doing this, we can, as B. Fife would say..... "Nip it..."

Thanks!

Maddygobi and KilluaOreo784 as well as JR.

Send Matt a PM .... no need for several of us to bug him!

Or I will ;)

With the huge salaries the moderators get, they do decent work. Maybe if the backed off paying me for my posts, they car raise the mods salaries.

The real bottom line is the web site is just a freebee paid for but the parts business. This site may draw many to the site that are looking for information on how to fix an air cooled 911 and they may buy some parts here. The forum makes the owners zero dollars, and is just an expense paid for by your subscription, that pays the moderators salaries and for my posts.

^^^^ I have reported nearly 70K of your posts Glen.... the mods are very busy and will get to you eventually :D

Two more, richardgravner and roselewis. I think someone already reported roselewis. I suspect richard and rose are the same person with multiple accounts.

Send Matt a PM with a list Steve....

Why have a post report button if the bloody thing doesn’t work? PMs seem highly inefficient to me especially if a mod is also using PMs for regular forum chatting.

Bump .... point them out guys, and I will add them to the listed ones in the OP....

I am set to display 40 posts per page. I see this thread with 26 posts, no problem.

Hmm, interesting.
So it’s not a bot.
But also not “legit.”
I just wonder how the human spamming business model works.

Jessy (and probably all of the current ones) are real people imo, but I haven't read posts by some. The obvious bots just quote a tidbit in an old thread from a prior post.... easy to program that too.

I'm sure they make a fortune with their business model too :D

Nothing wrong with Spam.
Goes great with Founders French Toast.

https://media.gettyimages.com/id/563...pFpWB-EdTs9-Y=

I ate spam when I was in the boyscouts (probably about 40 years ago). It was easy to take camping and cook. As I remember it tasted OK (maybe a bit salty). I often think after these threads, "I should get a can, just to see how my memory is and what I think now." But I can never bring myself to actually do it.

I've also been known to buy Kraft mac-n-chees, a can of ravioli, Chunky soup, etc... for nostalgia's sake.

Right, when their name is "ixaoeiuklu" and they quote someone else's post, I'm pretty sure that's a bot. But the current batch are real peeps.

Though spammers and scammers are easy to identify it's sometimes difficult to get them banned, feels like the mods don't agree. Here a mod even joined in and posted, but neglected to '86 the scammer.

Eventually another infrequent poster with WTB ad will get taken.

Sample from the engine building forum:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/911-engine-rebuilding-forum/1130648-engine.html

I tried to find some answers, but didn’t quickly see much info on bulletin board spammer income. Plenty of info on email spammers, but that’s a different kind of operation.

Payment is probably similar, I.e., they get a commission on sales (assuming there’s something in the links they are posting that allows them to be identified as the referral source). Anyways, on an unrelated subject you may want to check out https://twelve-inches-guaranted.com.

“Spammers

Spammers send out millions of messages on behalf of online merchants who want to sell a product. If a spam recipient buys something, the spammer gets a percentage of the sale. For pharmaceuticals the commission can be as high as 50%, and research has shown that the response rate can be rather high. A good example is "penis related spam" which has a 5% click rate, meaning that 5% of the recipients actually open the spam mail and click on the link in the mail.

This means that spammers can make a massive amount of money. In July 2007, a retired spammer told PC World that at the peak of his power he pulled in $10,000 to $15,000 a week sending e-mails that promoted pills, porn and casinos”

^^^^ Meh .... for that meager amount I wouldn't quit my night job being a $tud at the local wimmin's college .... but that's just me.

It’s not only spam, it’s a scam. After trying it, I only got 11.5 inches. What a rip off!

Statistically at least 10% of you clicked on the link :)

Are these posts reported? I don’t recall seeing them flagged.

Wondering if there’s a glitch in the matrix…

Again, this is a different type of spam. They're not looking for clicks. In fact, they probably don't want you to click the links.

They just want webcrawlers to SEE the links. That's why they go back and secretly add them weeks later, long after anyone is going to see the post. If they wanted clicks, they would try to put the links right up front in the begining.


It's all part of SEO, Search Engine Optimization. The webcrawlers see the links in many locations, and that triggers positive action towards that website in the search engines.


Also, just because "Jesse" replied, or added something more complex than a link doesn't mean that "Jesse" still isn't basically a search and replace algorithm. Someone might sit and type out dozens of replies to dozens of websites, but it's still an automated bot that goes and does the text replacement. They use these forums because the same forum software is used over and over again, so the bot programing can be repeated over and over again. The background code is the same across dozens or hundreds of websites, which makes multiple attacks easy.




*Not an internet safely expert, but yadda yadda Holiday Inn yadda yadda.

Thanks Mike, very interesting.
It looks like “Jesse” has been nuked, his reply in this thread is gone, but it was a very detailed and specific response to the specific comments in this thread. It wouldn’t be applicable to any threads on other BBs.
That had to be typed by a human, right?

Come on, you know that computers are now smart enough to read this thread, process the data, understand the subject and then use their fake username to interject human sounding responses, right?



I'm kidding. I hope. Jesse is clearly a person, but that person is clearly acting like an old skool bot. Perhaps some companies pay a LOT of money for people to actually sit and created reasonable looking posts? The posts you see a given bot-person reply to are varied and random, as are the links. Perhaps there's a dark web list of interested companies that you can buy, and you just search dozens of forums for threads vaguely related to one of the companies on the list?

The old bots are stopped at the gate these days, forums have enough protection software for that. But, the modern internet stealth weapon is a bored poor Gen-Z in Ukraine, who can evade the built in protections.