I Have A really Bad Feeling That Something Is Coming Down!

[Fat Man]

OK, I have noticed that so many new members have these weird user names.

I believe they are potential spammers.

So far, only a few of these new members have posted SPAM in these forums.

But I believe the rest are waiting. I suspect they are organized, and one day soon, they are all going to log on, and launch a massive SPAM attack on our forums.

In just a few weeks we have almost doubled our membership, and if a hundred of these new members log on at the same time, and each of these new members with odd user names post at least 10 messages, that would mean about a thousand new forum posts that is all SPAM!

I could be wrong, and I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

PLEASE! PLEASE! LET ME BE WRONG! JUST THIS ONCE! LET ME BE WRONG!

But if we do come under a massive SPAM attack, as I suspect we might, it's going to be worse than the attack from all those zoo-tramps from 4chan which happened almost a year ago.

And of course, over the past couple of years, many YouTube channels on science and evolution had false DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) claims filed against them, and massive down-thumbing campaigns against the videos and user comments by religious extremists, and some of these channels had been shut down as a result, and the owners of these educational channels on science had to fight back and some have incurred legal expenses hiring lawyers to help them to get their channels reinstated on YouTube.

And of course, we have come under attack from sports bullies, and many YouTube channels on science and evolution have come under attack from religious bullies.

This is a perfect example of how cyber-bullying can destroy freedom of speech and even destroy peoples lives.

I fear that we might come under a massive SPAM attack that will be sponsored by political and religious extremists.

There are some people who are perfectly willing to destroy freedom of speech for the rest of us and to sell their own freedom for a few bucks.

I really hope I'm wrong, but I have a really bad feeling about this!

[i_like_1981]

I've seen loads of potential spammer names on the Members list. People who signed up last year, even as far back as the summer, and haven't posted a thing. I doubt there's anything to worry about, really, apart from the odd spammer signing on and posting crap. I doubt they'll strike in a pack.

On another note, isn't it ironic how this thread got spammed as well?

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[ChrisOH]

I've seen loads of potential spammer names on the Members list. People who signed up last year, even as far back as the summer, and haven't posted a thing. I doubt there's anything to worry about, really, apart from the odd spammer signing on and posting crap. I doubt they'll strike in a pack.

On another note, isn't it ironic how this thread got spammed as well?

Best regards,
i_like_1981

Are those people in question the ones called "no-post blunders" on the Members list?

[Earl]

The "No-post blunder" category does include banned spammers all of whose posts have been deleted (either by me or Skul). But I'm sure that not all of them are spammers. For example, "sportsbookm" certainly doesn't sound like a spammer's typical username. These other individuals have simply chosen not to post yet and may never post at all (for whatever reason).

I don't think we have anything to worry about at this time. At least that's my opinion.

[i_like_1981]

Earl, sportsbookm certainly sounds like a sort of spammer name to me. If it was a real sports fan who'd signed up for a profile, he'd have probably called himself "SPORTSRCOOL" or named himself after his favourite team, or some other thing. I don't know, it just doesn't sound an authentic username to me. I think it's some spambot which caught hold of the keyword "SPORTS" in this website's title and thinks it'll appeal to us with sports-related spam which may or may not come. Just my two pennies' worth, as we say here in England.

But yeah, some of these are genuine people, I'm sure of it. Some of the no-post blunder accounts have usernames which have been typed out by a genuine member, but they've obviously forgotten about the site or just never bothered to post anything on there. That's happened with me sometimes. We still have no post blunder profiles from 7 months ago on here (I think).

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Agent 47]

Something strange that I noticed a couple of days ago, well 4.5 days and 1 hour ago from right now to be exact, was that there were 19 guests viewing the I ADVOCATE THE DEATH PENALTY FOR SPAMMERS!!! thread.

That's an unheard of high number of guests for this website at any one time - but especially on the one thread.

And then I went straight to the Board index, and there was only a Google Bot, and 2 guests viewing.

That seemed rather odd.

[i_like_1981]

I'm not fully sure about this, but I think the number of users displayed on the board index just refers to the ones looking at the board index page at that precise moment. I'm probably wrong, but it's a possible explanation for the dissimilarity between the two sets of numbers. Either that, or the online user counter is dodgy and sometimes displays high readings for no particular reason. I've seen it suddenly make drops in the number of online users before. Who can know? But anyways, if that "I ADVOCATE THE DEATH PENALTY FOR SPAMMERS!" topic gets a load of spam hammered onto it, we can make a safer guess that it's real people doing this. I don't see how a bot on its own could get past a CAPTCHA system and all the other precautionary methods. Technology these days.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[i_like_1981]

Well, as I type, some guy called something like "pespeaseask" is spamming the fuck out of all the boards on this forum. We get those ones who don't just make one spam post - they go and infest every single subforum with them and make multiple threads in one subforum! Seriously though, a message to the admins - you need to purge your Members list of probable spammers. I'm being honest here, the last 120 or so names on the Members list are probable spammers, and I suggest that they are all swiftly removed to prevent any old bots signing back on and spamming the hell out of this forum. This spammer problem is worse than I've ever seen before.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[recovering_fan]

That last post is hilarious, 1981. Glad Skul took your advice!

[i_like_1981]

That last post is hilarious, 1981. Glad Skul took your advice!

What exactly is so funny about it? I'm telling the truth. Is it my use of the word "purge"? If so, I don't see anything wrong with a purge IF it's restrained to clearing out likely spammers from a forum members list. That is necessary. Anyway, I see the job is done - a bit of a strenuous job indeed, clearing out all those spammers! I expect we'll be seeing another rise in the number of forum members over the coming days...

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Agent 47]

More strange goings on last night -

Just after I logged off, I noticed that there were 10 guests viewing the Board Index. Slightly unusual, but not extraordinary.

But I stuck around for a bit, and kept refreshing the page, and the number of guests kept going up and up and up for about 15 minutes, to a peak of 32 guests viewing.

That peak was 21 hours ago from right now. (Board time: Saturday Feb 5, 5:15 pm, unlogged in).

Hasn't been that many guests here since, when, last year's Super Bowel, I think.

They seemed to be mostly interested in the "My Collection Of Anti-sports Images!!!" thread (24 guests), and the "Hi I'm new I am Damo Bear" thread (20 guests).

Then over the next 15 minutes they all just dwindled away.

I suppose with the Super Bowel less than half a day away now, there are understandably a lot of bored people around at the moment.

[i_like_1981]

You have a real eye for these strange fluctuations in the online user counter, don't you, Agent 47? Well, my eye is constantly on the new members list, and merely days after I suggested a full purge of the Members list, we have a whole page full of no-post blunders again. That's more than 50 no-post blunders. Seriously, what is the damn point? This goes for spammers as well - why make an account on a forum but not bother to friggin' use it? It similarly annoys me when new members start whole threads to introduce themselves but never return to the forum to tell us more.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[recovering_fan]

What exactly is so funny about it? I'm telling the truth. Is it my use of the word "purge"?

It was funny, because I don't usually think of you as the F-bomber type, that's all. It just sort of caught me by surprise, as you tend to be fairly mellow most of the time.

(No, it was not your use of the word "purge".)

[i_like_1981]

It was funny, because I don't usually think of you as the F-bomber type, that's all. It just sort of caught me by surprise, as you tend to be fairly mellow most of the time.

Oh no, I've dropped a fair few F-bombs during my time on this forum. I can also get rather passionate about certain issues; "passionate" being a slightly more graceful term for "pissed off". When it comes to avoiding swearing, I think we have to hand the gold medal to our good friend Earl - I haven't actually seen him use one single word that I'd consider a proper swear word towards another person on this forum. I'm a moderate most of the time, yes, but it's a lot easier to get me het up than you may think.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[recovering_fan]

Roughly 40 more new members as of today.

(A warm welcome to the one or two who are legitimate. )