Obviously no mod is monitoring the forums?

[mariusw]

Disappointed...all spam posted by jerks and nobody does anything...

[Gany]

Far from it. I notice the spam too, and also the efforts of the moderators to remove it. It's just that they aren't 24/7 online. When I get up I see the spam, an hour later everything is gone.

The problem lies not with the moderators, but with PHPBB3. Spam control is <understatement> not quite up to date </understatement>. What worked well during the time Windows 95 ruled the earth is somewhat obsolete today.

[Shimei]

What shall we do, attack not only the spammers but those who fund them?

That isn't a bad idea actually. Isn't there a site (wishing Google) that blacklists other sites for spamming? If the owner doesn't care enough to know the methods by which people are supposedly promoting their site.. shame on them.

[Gany]

If I knew the real answer to stop spam, I'd be richer than Bill Gates!

PHPBB3 is rather old in the tooth. Version 3 is at least 10 years in production, with frequent but very minor upgrades. No idea when - or if - version 4 will come out.

Just about any working anti-spam measure was implemented in PHPBB3; spammers found ways to get around it. Not really a surprise after 10 years.

What I do myself is to approve each and every new forum member manually. Only after the first post has been approved they get access to our forum. That works only for very small forums. Not for Joomla, which is one of the biggest and most active PHPBB3 forums in the world.

In my case, that's at most one new real member in a week, and remove hundreds of spammers. The Joomla moderation team cannot possibly do that.

The problem is phpbb3 related, not Joomla. As long as phpbb3 doesn't improve spam protection, we're stuck with it. Perhaps experienced Joomla developers can create a a good anti-spam module for phpbb3, but that is beyond my skills.

Perhaps you will ask: why does Joomla bother to use PHPBB3, rather than Kunena which is developed for Joomla? That's because of the solidity of PHPBB3. Kunena is a good forum if you have not more than a couple of hundred users. If you have many thousands, you run into trouble. (I asked that question here myself.)

[dhuelsmann]

When I get up I see the spam, an hour later everything is gone.

Not this time and not many other weekend times. Seems the moderators don't do much moderating over the weekend. 4-5 pages of spam for 48 hours. Not a very welcome site for those trying to use the forums!

[itoctopus]

I think a batch of new moderators should be created to remove the spam. This way we'll have more people actually monitoring the website and response to spam will be swifter.

I volunteer.

Note: I usually love answering posts over the weekend, but it was a painful experience because it was really hard to find legitimate posts amongst all the spam. It was very horrible, there were literally pages of spam.

[mariusw]

Nice reply guys, but no mods in the weekend?
Im sure there are enough people to find. The thing is that you have the cover all time zones. In that way, no matter what time a spammer visits...he gets deleted and banned, with the used email address and username. And if thats not enough, block proxies.

Perhaps you will ask: why does Joomla bother to use PHPBB3, rather than Kunena which is developed for Joomla? That's because of the solidity of PHPBB3. Kunena is a good forum if you have not more than a couple of hundred users. If you have many thousands, you run into trouble.

Sorry but i disagree, some time ago Rockettheme changed from PhpBB3 to Kunena
Any idea how many users they have??
I was very impressed to see they had the balls to change.

[itoctopus]

Rockettheme's traffic is far less than Joomla's. Kuena can not handle large traffic, and I'm talking out of experience.

[mariusw]

From what i understand is that kunena is still updating their code to make it faster. Sure it depends on what server it runs...and prefered on a dedicated.....but RT is still a big site. And there seems to be a danish site with millions of posts..
And...naturely there are more forums....some paid.

[dhuelsmann]

Spam posted at 10:30 pm last night is still on the forums. More from 4 am and 5 am. All reported. So another 12 hours for the max and 6 hours or so for the minimum and it's Monday - not a weekend. Ridiculous.

[mariusw]

Well they sure can contact me and set me up as mod. With pleasure i will delete all spammers.

[toivo]

Count me in. I'd love to delete some spam and block the perpetrators

[kenmcd]

I think a batch of new moderators should be created to remove the spam. This way we'll have more people actually monitoring the website and response to spam will be swifter.

I volunteer.

Note: I usually love answering posts over the weekend, but it was a painful experience because it was really hard to find legitimate posts amongst all the spam. It was very horrible, there were literally pages of spam.

There are now, and always have been, many forum regulars who would be happy to help combat the spam.
Each time this is discussed, after another spam onslaught, many knowledgeable and trustworthy users volunteer.
But nothing happens (that we can see).

I suggested a Spam Patrol limited moderator back in January 2011.
Post subject: Spam Patrol - is a limited moderator possible?
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=589486
A number of people offered to help.
No official response.

This was discussed again in October 2011
Post subject: Re: There is too much SPAM on this forum, becoming unusable.
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f ... 7#p2638627
Again, lots of people offering to help fight the ongoing spam problem.
No official response.

And here we are again ... after another spam flood, lots of people offering to help.
And again there will be no response that we will be able to see.

Over and over again the "Joomla project" implores people to volunteer and help.
Here people are offering to help (over and over) and there is no response.

Quite frustrating to "give a crap" and not be able to do anything about it to help.
It is quite frustrating to watch the spammer in real time and not be able to stop it.

All I want is to be able to dump a spam poster in a moderation que.
Nothing that user has posted or will post will be visible again until a "real" moderator reviews the user's posts.
Stop the spammer in the act immediately.

If I do a good job, keep me in the Spam Patrol.
If I do not do a good job, remove me.
Zero risk to legitimate posters.

This spam flood issue has happened over and over and over again.
Spammers realize the spam moderators are not around and they post huge amounts of spam.

The spammers continue to post because their posts last long enough to get indexed by Google.
Deleting the spam posts in an hour or 30 minutes is not a deterrent.
They do not give a crap about a few people following a link from this forum.
They want their keyword links in the Google index.
In this forum those spam links are indexed in minutes.

Only when spammers are repeatably stopped in the act will they tend to go away.
Their time will be wasted if their posts are gone immediately, or never appear at all.
The posts need to be gone before the SE spiders index them.

Again, there are many knowledgeable and trustworthy users offering to help.
And again nothing will happen.
(At least provide some phony excuse why a Spam Patrol is not possible, which we can then mock for the lulz)

Any long-term solution to the spam problem must include more volunteers.
The troops are willing.
Where is the leadership?

 

[dhuelsmann]

Where is the leadership?

Lacking for quite some time now!

[Gany]

I'd like to volunteer as well to [* spam *] out spam.

[dhuelsmann]

I'd like to volunteer as well to [* spam *] out spam.

Don't hold your breath.

[itoctopus]

Then what should we do? Should we just nag everytime this happens? I'm sure it's not the solution.

Who should we involve in this? Who should we tell that we genuinely want to help? Who can help us help?

[Gany]

I don't see this as nagging. Just offering help to solve a problem. Most of us in this thread don't nag, but are genuinely looking for a solution. That the powers that be don't respond is something we can do much about.

[dhuelsmann]

Here we go again. Three general moderators on board but not a global moderator in sight and the spam is multiplying from 9:39 this am till now 1:18pm - some 4 hours.

[toivo]

The forum looks simply pathetic with all the love potions, [spam] and fake passports. Anyone trying to find a CMS and wanting to get an idea about the quality of support is likely to go elsewhere after that. First impressions are important also in Open Source.

[RedEye]

Maybe we should ask for including a new feature to the forum what allows every user with more than X posts to blend out topics. Mods than can delete them when they have time for it.
If a user is misusing this feature, lets say 2 times, the ability is taken from him/her.

[ot2sen]

Good to see more people offering to volunteer to help solve the issue. Nice.

As a local mod only, I can´t say whether they will take on your offer, but I posted to our special modforum to make sure your volunteering had visibility. Hope you folks get a response.

[itoctopus]

Thanks Ole!

Spam was ridicilous today. I did notice that phpBB flags some posts as spam, and there wasn't any false positives in the flagged posts, so why not delete those posts automatically. If the false positive ratio is 1% or less, then I think it can be tolerated instead of conveying the sense of abandoned forum that is abused by spammers.

Again, I reiterate my will to volunteer.

Thanks again!

[Femmetreysie]

Well, I do hope the efforts of the community will be heard my the global mods. Anyway, I'm still new here, but I'd be happy to help.

[dhuelsmann]

Here we go again. Three general moderators on board but not a global moderator in sight and the spam is multiplying from 9:39 this am till now 1:18pm - some 4 hours.

Now 6 pm - Same spam still on forums some 9 hours later. Not a wonderful experience for a newbie who might consider using Joomla. The OSM board is worried about losing market share and they wonder why? Well, take a gander OSM - this can't be helping. Time to revamp the global moderator crew - they certainly have done their share over the years but it's obvious that other priorities strive for their attention now.

[itoctopus]

A new batch of spam was added around 7:40 PM EST (by the way, I don't know which timezone the Joomla forum is on, it seems to be GMT -4, which puts the server somewhere in the Atlantic, but anyway), that is in addition to the old batch that is still there for 10 hours.

Something really needs to be done.

[Gany]

<nagging>The powers that be ... seem to take it leisurely ... </nagging>

There are plenty of volunteers who want to remove spammers on an daily base.
The problem could be solved within a day.

However, we see no spam!

[ooffick]

Thanks for all the suggestions. We are constantly looking for new ways to fight the spam in most cases we were pretty successful in the last year or so, however last weekend the some of the spammers won a temporary battle and got in in numbers. I am sorry about the inconvenience caused.

Kind Regards,
Olaf