Spam Attacks
These blanket spam attacks are getting really tedious. I mean, how are you supposed to find anything of any use on here when this happens. Steve, if you are reading this, is there anything that can be done to avoid this?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stange on
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Agreed, can't a spam filter be added to this?
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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on
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Super frustrating. I've been up since 5am trying to deal with this. Ning has over 1,000,000 networks. Whoever is behind this spamming knows what they are doing--an similar spam attack this week seemed to take the whole Ning network down.
We've got over 20 pages of forum discussions right now that are spam. I've removed/banned/suspended the user accounts, which is supposed to delete their content, but that doesn't seem to be working. I've sent a message to Ning, but I can only imagine they are dealing with this over many, many networks. I'm trying to remove each discussion, but it's not clear that that's working. When I remove an "activity" listing showing the spam posts, they keep coming back.
:(
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Permalink Reply by Michael Zimmer on
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They need to create a way for us to clear it as quickly as they post it! What is sad, is they put all this on there, and no one even looks at it, so they are only wasting time and space. Ning needs to add a security code feature to the forum creation and posting to solve the problem.
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Permalink Reply by Anthony Vestyck on
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I can recognize that spam can be a problem or inconvenience. Nevertheless I occasionally mention the software I developed for teachers. I will refrain for now. I mention it because I use it, not just sell it. I also think it can save taxpayer dollars and like to keep people informed. Obviously I would be a bit bias in my view to consider the mentioning of the software in articles…spam. Please consider that some people may have spent much of their personal assets to develop something to help others. There are also those that are not looking to profit but just break even. That is to say that the costs of advertizing is what keeps it from being free. Therefore those that want to provide the product at the lowest possible price may need to mention it once in a while. Factor in the numbers of stolen or shared copies and more is lost than gained. So is this spam? You tell me. When huge companies are willing to pay 15K for a small ad in one issue of a magazine there is no way for a small start-up to let people know about new products that may be better. We must rely on word of mouth.
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Thank you cprofitt. Believe it or not I feel much better now knowing I am not annoying too many people out there. Have a great day.
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Wylie on
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Yes, I was not aiming anything at any individual, other than those responsible for filling up 20 pages of the forum with the same junk. Sorry if you felt implicated! ;0)
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I am really sorry about the spam. I really hate spam and spammers.
I'm wondering what's going on at Ning because the balance of power has changed. The old Wikipedia formula was: make it easier to delete spam than it is to create it. With ups and downs, that's typically been the case using Ning. Yes, some spammers could get through, but our great membership here would see them quickly, alert me, I'd delete the scoundrel, and all their content would be deleted in a flash.
Now, however, when I "suspend" a spammer, their content stays on the network. Even when the checkbox is clicked to delete all of their content. And I'm stuck deleting posts one by one. I'm imagining two potential scenarios that might explain this with a positive spin: one is that Ning is getting hit hard by spam attacks and that the process of making all the content deletions is somehow so resource intensive that they've turned it off for the moment; the second is that there's a caching process in place and that the spam posts will ultimately be deleted over some longer refresh time (one might hope hours at the most).
Let's hope Ning can figure this out.
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Permalink Reply by suehellman on
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Steve -- is there any way some of us out here can help you with the job of deleting those entries? Does it still have to be a one-man job with the community the size that it's grown to? -SueH in Surrey, BC
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Well, this hasn't been a problem before, but I guess the answer is that we may need to move in that direction--and the offer is most appreciated!
It's not a good solution because it puts such a burden on us and will take us much more time than it took the spammers to create the spam. There's something wrong with Ning right now and I've send a note for tech support. Hopefully they'll figure it out.
If they don't, we can brainstorm together a way to deal with this. Thanks!
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