Quote:
Originally Posted by init4fun
 Thank You for the help guys ! I appreciate the info and will try to get some decent screenshots with your method .
Now , To anyone in charge who reads this ;
 I have been watching over the past several days since I first posted to this thread , and since March 5th when I posted , 375 new accounts have been created . NOT A ONE of them have posted anything !!!!! Every one of these new accounts have the same general properties , namely a weird string of numbers and letters that don't actually spell anything like a name or such . Now , I know what a Ham callsign looks like and know we have several users who use their Ham callsign as their screen name , but these aren't Ham callsigns . Something like "Wa2ise" IS a regular member who uses his Ham callsign . Got it . But what of the 375 new accounts ALL with names like the most recent " ui7p09q8t" ??? Is that , and the 374 others all with similar names , not worth looking into ? |
"Not worth looking into"? You do realize that you have just now glommed onto the subject of this thread. This is exactly why new registrations are being moderated, again, as of last October. We have been at this for a while, and have figured out a fair bit of it. Every new registration, let me repeat, EVERY NEW REGISTRATION, gets examined by one or another pair of eyes. In spite of this, occasionally, rarely, one gets by, and a post slips in. This is where the people who care about VK come in. The authentic member who spots a spammer reports the post, and the mod staff take care of it. That how all y'all help us keep this site valuable to you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by init4fun
I realize that most sites see ANY new accounts as a sign of growth and will never revise their membership lists when spammers and bots are banned .
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The Members List, in the toolbar, lists the count of members, and it changes by only a few per day, at most. There are three numbers under discussion: The count of genuine members, as reported by the Members List; The count of genuine members and banned members, as reported in the Forum Statistics section; the actual number of registrations that have been submitted, or User ID Number, as indicated by hovering your cursor over the name of the newest member, in the Forum Statistics section.
Here are the numbers, as of this post:
Members List: 35,910
Forum Stats: 40,658
ID number of newest member: 77,131
For a long time, the banned users were deleted, but the history was lost. As we got smarter, we began retaining these names and IPs, as an extra level of security. This allowed us to match up brand new spammer IDs with proven spammer IP addresses, or proven spammer email accounts. Our filter got much finer, so fewer and fewer spammers manage to get through. The only thing new about this spammer "invasion" is that it is attacking VK. I've been dealing with these people over at AK for a while, as AK's traffic levels make it a much more attractive target. I guess VK is getting more traffic, because these guys don't waste their time on unproductive targets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by init4fun
I really hope that ISN"T the case here , and that someone looks into this recent invasion of the no post letter/number accounts BEFORE something ugly happens to the site .
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As for your last sentence, above, I hope I'm misreading this, but I find it a bit unsettling. I'm not really sure where you are going with this, or what ugly something would happen to the site, but if you want to pm your concerns to me, I'll be happy to address them in more detail.