Hello good people,
I am starting to love our little thread here! I have to admit, I do love a bit of spam hunting :> :>
Question to you all that have been doing this on here for longer than I have:
- how do you do it? Any tips & tricks to easily find spam bots / spam accounts / spam posts?
I just check the new posts tab and I check the new members section. The only problem with the New Members section is that it only shows the last 12 accounts created.
Is there any way to see a full
list instead of just the last 12?
Anyway, I will keep my eyes open and my "refresh page" finger ready! :)
Happy hunting!
Elf.
Ah! Welcome young Obiwan! We are happy to have you aboard.π
I'll answer you as best I can.
First and foremost is the obvious stuff the serial spammers use: links to Keto, gambling, escort, and SEO or digital marketing sites are easy to spot, and we Mods typical get them fairly quickly.
New member "About" profiles are pretty easy to spot as well like
@Dayuser is so very good at which usually has a link or reference to what they're all about. Keep a lookout for questionable usernames and avatars as well.
Then there's the sneaky stuff. The 6 main types to look for are:
1. Imbedding spammers: They hide links within a word or words by changing the color of the spam link like I
did here. Which are easy to find if you drag your cursor over the text.
2. Post quote spammers: As the name implies. Find the link I added to your post I quoted. ;)
3. Punctuation spammers
: They hide links in almost any form of punctuation you can think of
. Did you see the colon and period I added in my sentence?
4. Hyperlink spammers: These are sometimes tricky to find since they'll add a link within, or at the beginning or ending of a legitimate link to hide it, or use a URL shortener if they really want to be sneaky. So just cursor drag across the URL and you'll usually see the separation and find the spam link.
5. Signature: Spam links added in signature.
6. Editing spammer: They'll come back a day or 2 latter and edit their post to add a spam link.
So just be diligent and report anything you find suspicious in this thread, or use the "report" button since there are several of us that patrol the forums daily.
Cheers: Badger50