Please do not reply to spam

[matt3o]

c'mon guys! like the spammer gave a shit about your replies. Please do not reply to spam messages, it's more work for the moderators to clean up the mess.

thanks!

[User101]

Lesson learned.
However, I think a lot of times people dont realize it's a spam...

[ZedTheMan]

Sorry matt3o! My bad.

[matt3o]

no worries guys, I was not pointing to anyone specifically, it just happened a few times and it's just takes more time to clean up.

However, I think a lot of times people dont realize it's a spam...

that's true

[St0ckz]

Oh dear.

Lessons learned, stick to lurking.

[scottc]

Nice try matt3o but this is clearly a spam post. Everyone that replied just fell for the trap.

edit: shit, me included

[yuchipashe]

I do wonder what the goal of spam posts are, and one of the posts lasted longer than usual since it was believable, so I tried taking the bait to see what happens. But I don't think I can wait long enough to figure that out . And now I do regret posting it since other people might also get tricked

I'm just amazed on how they're getting the contents though. Like this viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23008&p=455058 is coming from a reddit post from months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyb ... nstalling/

and this viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23009&p=455059#p455059 came from a different deskthority post with zero replies half a year ago viewtopic.php?f=2&t=21940. Makes you wonder if these are automated or some Chinese worker is trying to create usernames with content by posting random spam in different forums.

[Findecanor]

I think some forums require users to have a minimal post count before users can post a link.
Before these posting-bots, you could sometimes see replies with meaningless generic phrases that were easy to spot. They stood out because they were weird, and also the same phrases used.

One repost-spammer was recognised because it reposted a post from here that was just a couple days old.
Some bots also use formulaic usernames, with first and last name capitalised without space, e.g. "JohnColeman".

[xxhellfirexx]

I think some forums require users to have a minimal post count before users can post a link.

Apparently that's not possible here.

viewtopic.php?p=449635#p449635

[Compgeke]

For a while we had it set to require post approvals from new accounts and that helped keep stuff off the forum but didn't help us on the back end. Ultimately the "captcha" question was changed iirc and that cut down a lot.

Some fun spam detection tips I use:
1.) Is there something logical filled out for favorite keyboard and favorite mouse? It's very common for spam accounts to put their forum username in the "Favorite Mouse" field for some reason. Maybe there's some software that's doing it when making fake accounts.
2.) Does the location set in the profile match the IP the post originates from? While yes, you could be using a proxy or something, it's not very unlikely. If you say you're from the USA and your IP is from Bangalore or Ukraine or Taiwan, I'm most likely going to nuke the account. There are some exceptions where actual content is being posted but usually it's something very short and vague or just copy-pasted from somewhere else.
3.) Going off above, does the IP match up with a known spam IP? There're some lists online of rotating 90 day and such known spam IPs and if it matches up, not a good sign.
4.) What's their website, if one's set? Spam accounts like to set their profile website to whatever they're trying to shill on us!

[yuchipashe]

One thing that could really cut down the spam accounts is to first introduce yourself in a forum post with actual info before you can post and comment. Something like how you started the hobby, what your favourite or current keyboard is, if you see Topre switches as the best keyboard in the world or if they're just expensive condoms on keyboards, something like that. If the reply looks genuine and the facts checks out, then the user can now create comments, posts, and message users.

Only problem I can think of is one of the admins have to manually check everyday and manually enable user posts. You could also create an NLP topic model out of all technical words from the wiki and run the intro post through the model to check the percentage value of the post if it is keyboard related and automate everything. No idea if phpBB forums supports any of those though, but having a simple neural net on a forum seems cool to have hahaha

Also I use a VPN proxy almost all the time (until NordVPN decided to crap out recently, gotta need to change provider) so that would be so much of a hassle for some of us, especially with my banking where they temporarily lock down my account whenever I'm connected to a different IP outside the country...