Spammers Getting Through is Getting Old Quickly

[brownsfan019 17]

What's with the spammers easily getting by the spam catching software since the site was sold? Something changed b/c we are getting hit and hit hard and often. It's annoying and a complete turnoff when stopping by TL.

 

I log on now to see this:

 

 

One username, posting the same thing in as many threads as possible. And this is a regular occurrence here now.

 

Can't something be put into place to stop this? It's the same message in many threads. Ban the user and a new one will show up later.

 

It was never like this prior to the site admin change.

[macdfx 10]

I concur.

 

At least the old crew (James) had a handle on things. Right now, it's a free for all for the spammers.

 

Shame.

[Trader333 10]

What was it they were spamming about ? Did it involve anything to do with penny stocks or Canada stocks ?

 

 

Paul

[trade-samarai 10]

I would never, ever buy anything from a spammer! Who would, I wonder?

 

P.S. I sent TL a notice when I saw so many threads spammed with the same message (before seeing this thread).

[BlowFish 10]

I'm surprised a moderator has not called by this thread and said "please use the 'report post' button".

 

Not sure who the general board mods are nowadays (I know certain sections have there own) maybe they need a couple more for certain time zones?

[TIKITRADER 10]

I have been busy for some time but stopped by TL to see what is going on and twice today serious spam. Looks bad for TL.

[macdfx 10]

The current Admin and staff couldn't care less apparently.

 

When it was James' baby he was on top of it. Right now, the new crew is running the site as a money-making operation without regard for the integrity of the site and its posters.

 

They probably should keep James on as a consultant to advise them how to mitigate the onslaught of spam that has been plaguing them of late.

[Tams 20]

it's the July 4th long weekend in USA...

probably they are away.

I would worry if things do not get back to normal by Tuesday morning.

[DaKine 10]

I agree its getting old real old... :spam: :spam: :bang head: :spam: :bang head: :spam: :crap: :spam: :crap:

[BlowFish 10]

  Tams said:

it's the July 4th long weekend in USA...

probably they are away.

I would worry if things do not get back to normal by Tuesday morning.

 

Sadly this seems to be 'normal' now. I remember in the early days of TL there where a team of dedicated mods. At any time there was a good chance of a couple being on line whatever the time whatever the occasion. As it is now the only name I recognise is MMS. I would be interested to know if TL is where the new management want it to be? Seems understaffed to me, though I have seen no indication they might be recruiting more.

 

There is a thread in the support section about the woeful search function. Can't recall how old it is weeks maybe a month. No official response. I am sure it is not the case but it makes it feel like the captain and crew have taken to the life rafts.

[Tams 20]

note to moderator:

 

there is a one report per minute limit on reporting spams.

 

it make reporting multiple spams very difficult.

[DaKine 10]

Since the mods dont check the support section imma post this here lol. From another thread...

 

When James was running this ship it was a pretty tight ship I don't even remember any spam posts...

 

  macdfx said:

How about fixing the spam problem that is ruining TL for everyone instead.

 

Think you can man up and take care of it for us?

 

 

  MadMarketScientist said:

Geez macdfx when you put it like that I just don't know.

 

Seriously though, I'm not sure what you're referring to and hardly thing TL is being ruined for everyone. We actually have 3 people who work fulltime (not exclusively on TL there's no money here and receive any spam reports we get and actually I'm pretty proud how quickly we remove those from the site. Most of those posters tend not to return because they go through all that work of posting their spam and we delete it usually within the same hour (unless it's non-business hours)

 

There's no way to really stop this completely - the only way would be if we moderated every post and that's the last thing all of you would want - every post would be delayed, sometimes for hours. However, we rely on the Spam Reporting function and it seems to really work great and just so you know, we have multiple people who get those reports as soon as you click it and first available person deals with the deletions.

 

I'm pretty proud of the effort but hey, I'm always open to doing more so if there's something else we should be by all means, please let me know. Thanks.

[rcossey73 10]

It seems this is the only thread that isn't getting hit with spam...

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Hello all.

 

A few things and reminders. James is/was a great guy but I have talked to him in detail about this. He said it's no different now then it was. Remember, he was one guy trying to run TL on the side. When you guys report a post today we have 3 people, who work full-time get notified of those posts. And, you've probably seen they quickly get removed. Most times when I see the email and check it, it's already been removed by one of the other two who receive the reported posts.

 

We really do jump on those as soon as you guys do it. It really is dumb on the part of the spammers since their posts literally stay up for a few minutes most times, and then are gone. Waste of time but has it stopped the spammers from jamming your inboxes? No. Despite all the great filtering today I still get hundreds of spams everyday, though thankfully in my inbox most get caught. Clearly these are very annoying and fairly dumb people. But, what happens is they are probably hired help, being paid next to nothing to basically spam whatever blog or forum they can. Usually for a few dollars or a few hundred a month.

 

I totally realize it's a hassle and am open to solutions. However to say the website is somehow not being watched over is a stretch. James had no ability to manage this site especially in the last few months of his ownership due to a full time job and said he was giving it 20 minutes at best. We put a lot more time into it and yes, I understand the frustration but just saying how it used to be different isn't providing any solutions especially when that is a rose colored look at the past.

 

What I would like however are constructive solutions if you guys have any. We couldn't possibly respond faster than we do on reported posts. With three people including myself notified we do jump on them. And, it's not like this website brings in revenues anywhere close to being able to just hire more people on that.

 

I could moderate every post -- we could have every post go in a queue and get approved though I would think a lot of you would not like that. I might take a look and see if I can make the rules much tougher perhaps for new posters than they are. That is probably an idea worth looking at and I'll do that now.

 

Other suggestions that actually could help the problem I'm all ears. Thanks for the support, sorry for the frustrations and I know you all just sometimes need to vent -- that's cool. Thanks.

[DaKine 10]

Maybe anytime a new person signs up their 1st - 3rd posts should be monitored before posting them.

 

Seriously tho I've never seen the spammers hit this place as bad as they are doing now...

[MadMarketScientist 11]

After doing some more research I have implemented something. Let's see if it makes a difference. I'm sure you guys will let me know

 

Hopefully it helps, if not we'll keep digging.

 

Thanks.

[BlowFish 10]

  MadMarketScientist said:

Hello all.

 

A few things and reminders. James is/was a great guy but I have talked to him in detail about this. He said it's no different now then it was. Remember, he was one guy trying to run TL on the side.

 

No. There where a number of volunteer mods too. (I recall a bit of a 'pruning' shortly before you guys took over). A great bunch of guys who where active users (so around a lot) too. The solution seems simple a couple more mods, preferably in different time zones.

 

As an aside any news on the search function?

[TradeRunner 10]

  MadMarketScientist said:

What I would like however are constructive solutions if you guys have any.

 

You could moderate every post from newly registered users that contains an external link. Once a user has proved they are genuine say after n posts then their posts are no longer moderated in this way.

[Trader333 10]

  Quote

it make reporting multiple spams very difficult.

 

All you would need to do is to state that the spam is multiposted on the report feature.

 

Trade2Win is having the same issue with the same spammers. They are using Aweber to sign people up and I have made an official complaint to Aweber about this. I am due to have a discussion with them about banning them using their facility. I have also included TL as another site that is getting spammed by them. It is not in the interest of Aweber to be associated with this and they have a strict anti-spam policy.

 

Let's see what happens

 

 

Paul

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Thanks for the solid suggestions.

 

What we implemented yesterday seems to have helped at least for the last 24 hours. We'll see if it lasts.

 

I'm glad to hear about the Aweber complaint -- they are typically very sensitive to spam so I'll assume they will kick them off their service. Of course, they could end up using another service.

 

Blowfish, if you wouldn't mind give me a quick recap of the search issue again if you have a chance. I will get it assigned out to fix.

 

Thanks.

[UrmaBlume 10]

One issue with the search engine is that the last time I tried it, it would not produce results older than 1 year.

 

Thanks for the attention to these details, makes for a better community.

 

cheers

 

UB

[BlowFish 10]

The main issue is that search does not return a lot of threads with the search term in. There is a thread in the support section about it. Searching for "search" for example does not find it (or didn't). It's really hit and miss what it returns if it is a miss you need to try different terms or give up looking for the thread you require.

 

Cheers.

[macdfx 10]

Just google it instead.

 

Add "site:traderslaboratory.com" with your search term and you should be able to find whatever you are looking for.

[brownsfan019 17]

Hopefully the new spam catchers work!

 

[BlowFish 10]

  MadMarketScientist said:

 

Blowfish, if you wouldn't mind give me a quick recap of the search issue again if you have a chance. I will get it assigned out to fix.

 

Thanks.

 

Any news on this? It really is quite limiting.

 

e.g. there is a great thread called "plotting globex highs and lows" (or something similar). It illustrates a couple of pretty neat programming tricks. Just today I wanted to refer someone to it (it answers a couple of questions that are frequently raised). A search for "globex" does not reveal it. Very frustrating. Very.