# Flooding of spam in English Only



## perpend

What's happening? It seems like a hacker. A myriad of queries. There were multiple queries with slightly varied words.

What's going on? I sent a note to one or two Mods. No reply.


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## Sowka

Hello perpend 

These were not queries, but a load of spam for breakfast.


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## perpend

Many thanks for following up, Sowka. It did seem like spam, but there was a *lot* of it.

I did see how it disappeared relatively quickly. I was glad of that.


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## sdgraham

Spammers tend to generate their stuff programmatically, i.e. the computer generates large numbers of messages.

Likewise, good bulletin board software should be able to eliminate large numbers of messages with a single command, perhaps based upon user name, IP address, etc. That's a common task for relational databases.


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## Loob

perpend said:


> ... I sent a note to one or two Mods. No reply.


Didn't you use the "Report" button, perp?


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## JamesM

Loob's suggestion is a good one.  The Report button is more reliable.  English Only moderators are spread across the globe. Some of us are on while others are not, but all of us check the Reported Posts list for items reported in English Only.


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## perpend

Thanks. I don't want to click on them, to open them, so I don't report them, per se.

That's why I contacted a Mod.

I'm about to do it again, since it's happening again.

They do look computer-generated.


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## Loob

As James said, it's better to report them, perp (and that's what the Rules tell us to do).


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

When you wrote "perp", I thought at first you meant, humorously, "perpetrator" as in (TV?) 'copspeak', but then I realised you were addressing perpend..._Loo _! (But do call me 'ain'tt' or 'ATF' and save your carpal tunnels!)


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## perpend

Loob said:


> As James said, it's better to report them, perp (and that's what the Rules tell us to do).



Nope. No can do. As Sowka said, they are Spam.

They come in waves, like 10-20 in a bunch.

I ain't gonna click on each and every one, to "report" that particular post. No sir.

THANKS to Mods, they disappear in bulk, the same way they appear. (Thank, Ghabi.)


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## Cagey

You need to click only one post to alert us to all the presence of a spammer, no matter how many threads they have posted. 

We find them when we go through the banning procedure.


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## perpend

But Loob is suggesting to click on it, then report it.

Am I misunderstanding procedure?

I don't want to click on Spam (when there are 10-20 posts flooding the English Only forum.)

This is why I have sent notes to Mods instead of clicking on each individual post, to try to report it.


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## Cagey

Click on one of the spam posts to report it. 
[That is, click on the 'Report' link, just as you usually do to report posts.]
The mod who sees the report and acts on it will automatically see all the other posts by the same spammer.  

There is no need to worry about all the posts that the spammer posts.  You need report only one post.


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## perpend

You have to click on a spam thread to be able to "report" it (unless I'm doing something wrong).

No thanks. If the spam comes in bulk like that, then there should be counter-spam software that prevents it from happening.


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## DearPrudence

I am not a specialist but if you just click on the post (and then "report"), your computer doesn't risk anything.
There is some counter-spam software but it is not 100% effective so reporting one post is always useful.


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## osa_menor

There are places in the web where I have to check a little box that says "I am human" or "I am not a Computer" before I can post a thread. This prevents computer-generated messages. I don't know if that is possible en XenForo.


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## sdgraham

the _ne plus ultra_ of anti-spam is the requirement for the poster to enter captcha codes.





The problem is that the tighter the security one invokes, the greater the chilling effect on contributions.

Overkill is as bad as spam.


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## Kelly B

sdgraham said:


> Overkill is as bad as spam.


I couldn't agree more. I'm a frequent reporter , and I've found this system more than satisfactory. It only takes a few seconds to do it: open _one _thread, click Report on any post in it, type SPAM in the dialog box, click the button to send the report. Done! As noted above, that's all you need to do. The moderator who handles it will investigate and remove it all.

The response is almost always gratifyingly fast, because it doesn't matter which moderator happens to be on line when you use the report function for spam. If no mods in your favorite forum are on line and you depend on sending messages, a response may take a while, allowing the spammer to make a bigger mess.


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## JamesM

perpend said:


> You have to click on a spam thread to be able to "report" it (unless I'm doing something wrong).
> 
> No thanks. If the spam comes in bulk like that, then there should be counter-spam software that prevents it from happening.



We don't talk about it, but we do have multiple spam filters.  One of them places posts on hold until a moderator can review them and either release them or delete them.  We kill dozens, if not hundreds, of posts a day that you never even see.  That's one of our jobs as moderators.

No software is perfect, perpend.  All we are asking is to report one post. If that's too much for you I suppose we'll just have to rely on others to do it.


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## perpend

Thanks a lot for the additional input! I understand the process in a whole new way. This is good.


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## chamyto

perpend said:


> Thanks. I don't want to click on them, to open them, so I don't report them, per se.
> 
> That's why I contacted a Mod.



Rules suggest us to report any message we think that are against the philosophy of WR. Nobody is going to recriminate you if you report a post. He/She will probably thanked very much.

WR is a huge community of people worried about the use of languages, and all aids to avoid spammer and to "organise" the forums are always welcome. That's my point of view.


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## Dan2

As I read this thread, people seem to be talking past each other (or at least, everyone (except Prudence) is missing perpend's point, and he's not making his point explicit).

When perp says "I'm not going to click on spam to report it" he's NOT (as I understand him) saying it's too much trouble, or that he thinks he needs to report every spam message, but rather that "we all know that it's dangerous to click on spam".  But I agree with Prudence: there should be no danger in simply viewing a message that has been placed on the WRF server (just don't click on any links WITHIN that message).

Maybe some will disagree with me about the lack of danger, but it was just frustrating to see people apparently missing each other's point.

Thanks for listening...
Dan

EDIT: BTW: interestingly ambiguous thread title.  I clicked on the thread thinking that someone was wondering why we don't see flooding in other languages...


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## wildan1

I have now changed this discussion's title to be clearer, Dan2.


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## Parla

When I saw the multiple instances of spam earlier in the week I immediately used the report button. I assume others did likewise. It was the logical thing to do.


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## Englishmypassion

Just now there were multiple spam threads and I reported one of them. I hope they all come to moderators' notice.


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