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Spammers

DPic [PersonRank 10]

Wednesday, September 9, 2009
14 years ago3,569 views

Alright, so here, there, anywhere, you run into spammers. They post on your blog, the post on my blog, his blog and her blog-- i'd like to start making it detrimental for them to do so.

Everytime sombody posts spam somewhere, we should do something in retaliation. Ideas?

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Delete it?

If everyone deleted spam soon after it was posted, it would no longer be worth the spammer's effort to spam, because they would gain no benefit.

But for every person who deletes all their spam, there's some long-forgotten unmaintained website which is still accepting comments.

I think an important step towards removing the spam problem would be for blogging software (WordPress, TypePad, Blogger etc) to automatically stop accepting comments on any blog that has not had a post for a week (or even a day).

DPic [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

You said it yourself, <<But for every person who deletes all their spam, there's some long-forgotten unmaintained website which is still accepting comments.>>

They won't stop posting until it's actually a bad thing forthem to do so.

Idea #1: we could find a "contact us" section of their site an just post their emails and numbers to a bunch of spam lists...and 4chan

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

[put at-character here]DPic: maybe you missed my last paragraph.

If owners of active blogs are promptly deleting the spam, and if blogging software doesn't accept comments on dormant blogs, then there is no longer any incentive for blogs to be spammed.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

> Idea #1: we could find a "contact us" section of their site
> an just post their emails and numbers to a bunch of spam lists...

You want to fight spam with spam? I don't think an "eye for an eye" approach works here. I'm with Roger. The responsibility lies with the site and software owners. Philipp has gone to great lengths to reduce spam here but we still need lots of human effort to keep it in check. Not every website has that luxury. I think you can only really do one of the following, depending on what's available to you:

1. Report spam.
2. Remove spam.
3. Ignore spam.

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

When I get spam from an email I've always wished there was a "Reply 1,000,000 times" button. If enough people pushed it after they got spam they could ruin the person sending them

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

(By the way, I was pondering using captchas here for posters who post under a name that is say under a day old [or who post under a name that is just a common first name]. This may be the next logical step should spammers take overhand here. But it always needs to be balanced against the comfort of us humans here who don't like to solve captchas, so I've not yet gone to that length...)

hebbet [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

maybe you should add akismet, there is also an php class

http://akismet.com/development/

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Akismet blocks around 95% of the spam on my WordPress sites, and only occasionally blocks a legitimate message (for comment filtering that's probably acceptable).

The API is free for smaller sites, and inexpensive for larger ones.

TypePad's AntiSpam service is free for anyone for any purpose, and the API is compatible with Akismet.

Philipp, I'd recommend such a service as a preferable alternative to captchas:

http://antispam.typepad.com/

Travis Harris [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

T0 get y0ur prescrjpti0ns fil1ed che[put at-character here]ply fr0m 0ur pharm[put at-character here]ci5ts, Click Here!

Sorry couldn't resist... how will I be retaliated to?

Travis Harris [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

to = against

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