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GDnet vs The Spammers

Started by Cornstalks Oct 23, 2011 at 5:52 PM 19 replies 7.2k views

Original Post

Oct 23, 2011 at 5:52 PM

12 pages and counting of stuff in Active Content. 287 entries in the last 24 hours. Aw snap now it's 289. Is it just me, or is GD attracting more spammers lately?

Now it's 297 entries... This page sufficiently expresses how I feel, particularly the picture.

Is there a way we can slow down the spammers in the future until a mod is able to ban them? Like maybe, if someone gets too many --ratings in the first week of registering, their starting a new thread privilege gets put on hold until a mod reviews their account?

Now it's 307 entries...

[edit]

Ooooh, it looks like GDnet is making a comeback! Now there's only 258 entries in the last 24 hours! Now 243! This is like watching an intense battle, seeing the new spam come in at the top of the Active Content list, and refreshing to see what the score is!

Sidenote: Yeah, I know not all 243 entries are spam, but most are, so I'm just using the total number of active content as the score.

216... my thread is now near the top! Why the freak is this entertaining to me?

fastcall22

Oct 23, 2011 at 6:04 PM

We should require the first post of a new user be reviewed by a moderator (or anybody with 100+ reputation) for approval, and prevent the user from performing any other actions until the post is reviewed. Something like: "We're sorry, but your demeanor is currently being judged from the content of your first post. Please wait patiently. "

Also: Maybe a content-similarity filter that silently fails submissions that are >= 90% similar to a recent post, say in the past half hour or last five or ten posts. (This can prevent accidental double-posting!)

Lode

Oct 24, 2011 at 11:45 AM

We should require the first post of a new user be reviewed by a moderator (or anybody with 100+ reputation) for approval

way2lazy2care

Oct 24, 2011 at 11:51 AM

[quote name='fastcall22' timestamp='1319393047' post='4876002']
We should require the first post of a new user be reviewed by a moderator (or anybody with 100+ reputation) for approval

I'm not sure, it could be tricky, a new user may make a first post that isn't all that great (like "hi im timmy and i want 2 maek hockey mmorpg"), but still not spam, and then a moderator or 100+ user may just dismiss the post, and with that the new user, because they personally don't like the post...
[/quote]

Also then you're just spamming everyone with over 100+ rating :-p

If at any point in time a bunch of people join for some reason you'll have to deal with approving everyone rather than just deleting the spam bots. If the number of real people joining > the number of spam bots, you will save time doing it the way they do now.

Gaiiden

Oct 25, 2011 at 12:13 AM

Staff and mods are discussing several options for limiting something like this happening again in the future.

One of the more interesting side effects of all this spam is that it shot our site up to the #1 Google search result when people went looking for watching live streaming football games over the internet. Somehow they found their way from these spam posts on our site to GDNet+ and we actually got 14 people sign up for our membership service to watch streaming football. One lady called up Dave Astle (as in, got his phone number somehow) and asked him why she couldn't watch the Steeler's game!!

So yea... we don't want to see this again

Kudos to the mods who were around to clean this all up!!

fastcall22

Oct 25, 2011 at 12:31 AM

I'm not sure, it could be tricky, a new user may make a first post that isn't all that great (like "hi im timmy and i want 2 maek hockey mmorpg"), but still not spam, and then a moderator or 100+ user may just dismiss the post, and with that the new user, because they personally don't like the post...

The general idea was to have people with 100+ reputation filter out spam stuffs on their free time. Imagine "active topics" with checkboxes, only instead of the active topics, it's a list of posts/threads waiting to be admitted. Maybe some criteria to color the threads a different color indicating probability of spam. The goal is to weed out threads titled "WATCH FREE ONLINE SPORTS HERE CLICK BAD ENGLISH NAO OMG ASIA".

Though it's probably more work than its worth, since this doesn't happen often.

Staff and mods are discussing several options for limiting something like this happening again in the future.

Can't wait to see what you guys come up with.

Somehow they found their way from these spam posts on our site to GDNet+ and we actually got 14 people sign up for our membership service to watch streaming football.[/quote]
I have lost all hope for humanity. Also, WTF.

EDIT:
Coerce Dave into posting the phone conversation; I'd bet that'd be quite an entertaining read!

Servant of the Lord

Oct 25, 2011 at 1:10 AM

One of the more interesting side effects of all this spam is that it shot our site up to the #1 Google search result when people went looking for watching live streaming football games over the internet. Somehow they found their way from these spam posts on our site to GDNet+ and we actually got 14 people sign up for our membership service to watch streaming football. One lady called up Dave Astle (as in, got his phone number somehow) and asked him why she couldn't watch the Steeler's game!!

So yea... we don't want to see this again

Unless the phone conversations are recorded and posted for the lulz ofcourse!

Gaiiden

Oct 25, 2011 at 1:14 AM

[quote name='Gaiiden' timestamp='1319501624' post='4876537']
Staff and mods are discussing several options for limiting something like this happening again in the future.

Can't wait to see what you guys come up with.
[/quote]
Hopefully you won't. We're trying to solve this on the back-end.

Michael Tanczos

Oct 25, 2011 at 1:51 AM

We've rolled out the first of our backend changes to stop spammers. Our community members have flagged these guys so quick (fastcall22!!) that our moderators are able to clamp down on them quick. Yesterday at one point we had over 16,000 people visiting the site and saw a spike in site traffic of almost 100,000 page views. Jeez.

Cornstalks

Oct 25, 2011 at 1:58 AM

One of the more interesting side effects of all this spam is that it shot our site up to the #1 Google search result when people went looking for watching live streaming football games over the internet. Somehow they found their way from these spam posts on our site to GDNet+ and we actually got 14 people sign up for our membership service to watch streaming football. One lady called up Dave Astle (as in, got his phone number somehow) and asked him why she couldn't watch the Steeler's game!!

Wait... seriously?

Gaiiden

Oct 25, 2011 at 2:03 AM

SERIOUSLY

Alpha_ProgDes

Oct 25, 2011 at 2:14 AM

One of the more interesting side effects of all this spam is that it shot our site up to the #1 Google search result when people went looking for watching live streaming football games over the internet. Somehow they found their way from these spam posts on our site to GDNet+ and we actually got 14 people sign up for our membership service to watch streaming football. One lady called up Dave Astle (as in, got his phone number somehow) and asked him why she couldn't watch the Steeler's game!!

BEST. IDEA. EVAR!

GD.net should have Madden (or a Madden-like game) recreate all the plays from the live simulcast. Of course and stream it. Have it only available to GD.Net+ users. That way they all could watch the game and be watching a game. Get it? Get it!

Myopic Rhino

Oct 25, 2011 at 3:04 AM

Coerce Dave into posting the phone conversation; I'd bet that'd be quite an entertaining read!

I wish I had recorded it, but it went something like this:

Me: Hello?
Vera: Hi, is this GameDev.net?
Me: Uhm... yep!
Vera: I just signed up with you so I can watch the Pittsburgh Steelers game live, and I can't find where to do that.
Me: Uh... we're a site for people who make video games. We don't do anything like that. At all.
Vera: You don't provide live streaming of NFL games?
Me: No.
Vera: Then why do you advertise that you do?
Me: As far as I know, we don't, since football has absolutely nothing to do with our site.
Vera: Well, then I want my $12.95 back.
Me: Sure. Just file a dispute with Paypal, and we'll refund it.
Vera: Okay [click]

What this doesn't capture is how annoyed she sounded, and how confused I sounded.

fastcall22

Oct 25, 2011 at 4:00 AM

What this doesn't capture is how annoyed she sounded, and how confused I sounded.

The text captures it perfectly, IMO.

Vera: I just signed up with you so I can watch the Pittsburgh Steelers game live, and I can't find where to do that.
[/quote]
QFE. Seriously! WTF!? Even the spammers had explicit how-to instructions directing traffic to their fake surveys ...

Unless... Oh no. Did they confuse "game" in "gamedev.net" not as in "videogame", but in "football game"?

??

Cornstalks

Oct 25, 2011 at 4:24 AM

Guys, I have it!

[attachment=5843:gd_football.png]

Gaiiden

Oct 25, 2011 at 5:17 AM

Unless... Oh no. Did they confuse "game" in "gamedev.net" not as in "videogame", but in "football game"?

??

Yea that's an idea I got from my Dad, who was with my Uncle and Sister downstairs watching the Packers game when I heard about this

Zethariel

Oct 25, 2011 at 9:52 AM

Too bad I wasn't around to see all this happen.

I mean, I can see that there were 16k users at some point in the last days, and was pretty amused.

Never imagined something like this could happen on gamedev. I'll watch out for chargebacks filed against gamedev.net (I work with reclaiming money for bank clients )