This post was prompted by this thread:
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/tamp-and-puff
I started over there by saying -
It's a frustrating situation [SPAMMERS] for both site members and forum / web site administrators / owners.
You guys don't see it, but the level of spam is immensely, ridiculously, unrelentingly never-ending.
In the above referenced post, a guy had his IP address blocked for being a spammer ... except he is not a spammer.
The simple problem there is that even when you have a fixed IP address from your ISP, they still change every once in a while. He probably got a new IP that had formally been used by a spammer.
We have had the same problem here. I have had to unblock some legit members.
I spend about 8-hours a week managing spammers - deleting accounts, banning IP addresses, deleting spam messages, spam comments on articles, etc...
And that is with programs in place to catch the spam before it is published, or to catch user accounts before they become active.
I could write a book on this stuff, but I'm keeping this brief.
Here are a few stats for you -
November 2011 - 5,000 spam comments were captured and filtered out before they could be published in various articles here on PipesMagazine.com. This was the peak in automated spam comments.
I made some changes in the site structure to make it more difficult for spammers, then the next month spam comments were cut in half to 2,500. Then after more changes, we have been averaging 300 - 400 spam comments that are caught by the filter, even to this day on a monthly basis.
Month-to-date, for January 2013 - we are at 161 spam comments automatically filtered out.
The smaller number means that fewer spammers are actually able to use their automated "bot" tools to get into the system. We catch 99% of the spam comments before they go public. So we have cut back significantly on the number of spammers that are able to breach the backend of the site - which you guys never see.
Still, every single morning when I login to the admin, there are an average of 6 - 12 new spam comments.
The 8-hours a week I spend currently is dealing with live human spammers, between PipesMagazine.com and http://cigarchronicles.com/.
For some reason, CigarChronicles.com got on one or more spammer lists, and has been severely under attack.
I had to install a new system over there, and still have to manually remove about a dozen spammer accounts a week.
The automated system reports -
"Stop Spammers has stopped 22,840 spammers since installation" - (which was August 1, 2012) - so that is an average of 4,152 spammers per month - meaning people that tried to make an account so they could leave spam links.
The same person signed up 4 times in a row over the weekend after I deleted her. I think I finally got her fully blocked as she hasn't been back since.
Anyway, it's a constant "arms race" with spammers. You find new ways to keep them out, and then they find new ways around the system, and it goes on and on and on.
Unfortunately, there are the occasional innocent bystanders as well.
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/tamp-and-puff
I started over there by saying -
It's a frustrating situation [SPAMMERS] for both site members and forum / web site administrators / owners.
You guys don't see it, but the level of spam is immensely, ridiculously, unrelentingly never-ending.
In the above referenced post, a guy had his IP address blocked for being a spammer ... except he is not a spammer.
The simple problem there is that even when you have a fixed IP address from your ISP, they still change every once in a while. He probably got a new IP that had formally been used by a spammer.
We have had the same problem here. I have had to unblock some legit members.
I spend about 8-hours a week managing spammers - deleting accounts, banning IP addresses, deleting spam messages, spam comments on articles, etc...
And that is with programs in place to catch the spam before it is published, or to catch user accounts before they become active.
I could write a book on this stuff, but I'm keeping this brief.
Here are a few stats for you -
November 2011 - 5,000 spam comments were captured and filtered out before they could be published in various articles here on PipesMagazine.com. This was the peak in automated spam comments.
I made some changes in the site structure to make it more difficult for spammers, then the next month spam comments were cut in half to 2,500. Then after more changes, we have been averaging 300 - 400 spam comments that are caught by the filter, even to this day on a monthly basis.
Month-to-date, for January 2013 - we are at 161 spam comments automatically filtered out.
The smaller number means that fewer spammers are actually able to use their automated "bot" tools to get into the system. We catch 99% of the spam comments before they go public. So we have cut back significantly on the number of spammers that are able to breach the backend of the site - which you guys never see.
Still, every single morning when I login to the admin, there are an average of 6 - 12 new spam comments.
The 8-hours a week I spend currently is dealing with live human spammers, between PipesMagazine.com and http://cigarchronicles.com/.
For some reason, CigarChronicles.com got on one or more spammer lists, and has been severely under attack.
I had to install a new system over there, and still have to manually remove about a dozen spammer accounts a week.
The automated system reports -
"Stop Spammers has stopped 22,840 spammers since installation" - (which was August 1, 2012) - so that is an average of 4,152 spammers per month - meaning people that tried to make an account so they could leave spam links.
The same person signed up 4 times in a row over the weekend after I deleted her. I think I finally got her fully blocked as she hasn't been back since.
Anyway, it's a constant "arms race" with spammers. You find new ways to keep them out, and then they find new ways around the system, and it goes on and on and on.
Unfortunately, there are the occasional innocent bystanders as well.
