Spammers ar Silly

[purplefdu]

Do you ever see a post on a forum for someone's site and realize they have made only that post and just roll your eyes? I often wonder just how many hits they get from posting their garbage. Surely they could at least pretend to contribute something worthwhile in return for the free advertising.

[USCGamecocks]

I think users of forums are smarter than the spammers give credit. One spammy post would probably get relatively low clicks. It's almost like you can smell them from a mile away. I wouldn't think as the only source of traffic they would fair well at all.

[Solinvicta]

I'd agree that most users of forums are pretty saavy...but for a lot of spammers, it's basically a numbers game. I mean, even if hopefully 99.5% of the online community is too smart to fall for a Nigerian bank scam or some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, the cost for most spammers to post things and send emails is basically zero. So, it still winds up making them money.

But, in the meantime, the rest of people still have to deal with sorting through all the stuff to get what we're after.

[wealth2wealth]

spammers usually post on a forum and go away looking for victims to contact them

[the weakonomist]

I'm not a computer expert, but I know the spamming game is facilitated many times by using bots. Bots can register and even post comments on websites. I don't think it would be too hard to bot up a forum either. If the whole process is automated, it doesn't hurt the bots to try.

[egray]

Originally Posted by the weakonomist

I'm not a computer expert, but I know the spamming game is facilitated many times by using bots. Bots can register and even post comments on websites. I don't think it would be too hard to bot up a forum either. If the whole process is automated, it doesn't hurt the bots to try.

This is very true. I saw an argument in a forum not too long ago where a guy was trying to sell a new automatic forum posting system. You basically entered a promotional post into the system and the program went out and dumped it in all the forums it could find. The system claimed to not generate SPAM, but if it's not a direct contribution to the topics on the forum, it's most definitely SPAM...

[starshard0]

I found that spammers can often be combated by a combination of registration obstacles and good moderators/administrators. Wisebread has always seemed that way from me, even though we don't seem to have a ton of mods or admins (just very dedicated ones).

[purplefdu]

Originally Posted by egray

This is very true. I saw an argument in a forum not too long ago where a guy was trying to sell a new automatic forum posting system. You basically entered a promotional post into the system and the program went out and dumped it in all the forums it could find. The system claimed to not generate SPAM, but if it's not a direct contribution to the topics on the forum, it's most definitely SPAM...

Sounds like they are too cheap to pay people to do it realistically and organically (which is alot cheaper than you'd think if done well).

Keeping bots out is a struggle at times, but most well run forums have no issues keeping out bots and spammers. However once you let the posts linger you're not only helping them out you are advertising your own inability to keep them from registering and posting temporarily at the very least.

[starshard0]

I'm not sure how many mods we currently have here at Wisebread, but I'm sure if they wanted there would be plenty of volunteers.

[egray]

Originally Posted by purplefdu

Sounds like they are too cheap to pay people to do it realistically and organically (which is alot cheaper than you'd think if done well).

Keeping bots out is a struggle at times, but most well run forums have no issues keeping out bots and spammers. However once you let the posts linger you're not only helping them out you are advertising your own inability to keep them from registering and posting temporarily at the very least.

I've heard that now there are bots that can even decipher CAPTCHA systems and fool most systems into thinking they're human. There really is no escape from the spammers.

They basically work on the numbers game: they post thousands, if not millions of messages in the hope they land in front of someone after that particular service. I have a dirty confession myself, I have actually bought from a spam advert for pharmaceuticals (no, it wasn't viagra!) simply because it was right there just when I needed it.