Every new user's first post goes into moderation, which means it isn't displayed to anyone but the mods. Once we've approved the post the user can post normally. Spambots create new accounts and post fucking everywhere they can, which obviously we don't approve so the rest of ya'll can see, but we still see them.
We saw a dramatic drop in spam on my board when we changed the CAPTCHA (seemed like the old one had a security hole), added a human intervention question (we question them on part of the board's URL), and added an Akismet plugin. Also considering adding a honeypot field, one that is not displayed to a user but sits in the code for bots to fill out.
Someone way above my paygrade will have to figure that one out. The last thing anyone wants is me fiddling around with technology.
We are bandying about these issues right now in conclave. Patience. Also note that mods are not admins are not system admins - mods have very limited power, actually. I am volunteering to try to work these issues, but I don't currently have direct access to the forum code or database, which would be needed to effectively clear out the existing infestation and then set up some new roadblocks to more spammers. Like I said, we're working this.
Well, that does answer a lot of questions about how things have been running around here lately (no new threads/only moderator authored threads getting bumped). However, couldn't you view the existing suggested threads via a regular account, pick one that looks good and copy the web address, then log back on as a mod, do a quick search for it and bump it? I know that seems like a big pain in the ass that wouldn't ordinarily be necesarry, but it could at least pump some life back into this place. Or am I missing something? Usually when I ask a mod about their "job" on here, they tell me to not worry about it and stop bothering them or they'll ban me. EDIT: Also, about spambots/spam in general: Does any of it actually work? Does anyone actually fall for "Buy pillz wha1t for biger pen1s!" messages?
I for one would sorely miss all his cop-sodomizing fantasies and jungle bush porn. (Well gee, is that there a pussy or a prick? Guess ah won't know till I reach in there and feel around, yee haw!)
Yes, it does work. Not very much, but then again when you're sending out a quadrillion messages you only need to convert a very small percentage of recipients to buyers to make money. Message board spam serves a slightly different purpose, though: it tries to get links to boner pill sites onto a lot of different domains. Google's ranking algorithm has evolved a lot over the years, but one of the basic original tenets was that links = votes - keywords in the pages themselves are a secondary concern at best. So, if they get a link to their boner pill site on TiB (especially with text like "best boner pill ever" in the link), then that's a "vote" from TiB to that boner pill site for the keywords "best boner pill ever", and it pushes it up in the search engine rankings for searches about the best boner pills. If TiB has a lot of links to it from other sites, then TiB's vote is amplified (that is, the more people link to you, the stronger your "vote" is). Links from only a few different sites don't count for much, but links from lots of different sites must mean that people really like your boner pills. That's why it's theoretically advantageous for these spambots to hit as many sites as they can. You can have the board software mark user-created links with 'nofollow,' which basically means "this is a link, but it's not a vote." This way, search engines won't treat it as a vote for ranking purposes. I just looked and it doesn't look like our board does that for user-generated links. Not that it would stop the spammers - their bots don't see the posted links and go "aww, nofollow! I better not spam there anymore!" They just spam spam spam.
I believe Chris Rock said it best on Ken Burn's documentary about baseball when he said(paraphrasing): "How many of you WOULDN'T take a pill to make more money at your job? Like five times more? None? Then shut the fuck up." Granted, as far as I know a bunch of steroids you take with needles, but the point still stands.
I think I've talked about this before, but my dad. He was never a great father, but I always took solace in the fact that he was at least outwardly good to the community. City council seat, he ran a clean-up-the-neighborhood initiative in a couple different places to oust all the meth heads including near my school, he mentored a lot of at risk youth and was a pillar in the Persian community. Basically he was big enough in my city that he was considering a run at mayor, and if you mentioned his name in certain circles, people knew exactly who you were talking about in a good way. All that ended in 2006, when he got arrested for allegedly raping one of his tenants. The real story in my opinion is that he was actually soliciting women for sex in lieu of rent, but either way, he went to court and was publicly torn down, all over the local news etc. The worst part of it was he vehemently denied the whole thing, claimed the woman was a horrible liar and went on a year-long tirade about how all women are liars. The trouble is I knew she had to be at least half-telling the truth; once when I was his secretary, I was searching his desk for highlighters and found a stash of condoms that were clearly supposed to be secret. At the time I assumed they were for his girlfriend who also worked in his office (ew), but after the allegations came out, it dawned on me he probably did this on the regular. All of a sudden, not only was he a bad person to me, he was a bad person to everyone else. It's just the weirdest feeling in the world to not be able to look up to a parent in some small way, but there is really nothing left about his character that is redeemable. He changed his name and moved to Florida, so I don't talk to him anymore, but sometimes Persian people put two and two together with my last name and ask me if I'm his daughter, and I'm always torn between saying yes or no.