I've noticed a huge uptick in spam comments with suspicious looking hyperlinks recently.   Short of swithcing off comments on all my gallery posts, does anyone have any suggetion as to how this can be tackled? I dont see any functionality to block specirfic users, and reporting these posts doesnt seem to have made a difference (yet)...

If you're reporting them, we are banning them. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop new ones from coming. Please keep reporting the ones you find so we can keep them from posting more.

I do recommend using this button in the gallery comments so we can find and delete the comments.

I was about to create a thread about this. Spam is getting ridiculous again. There's gotta be a way to implement protection against bots...

And sure yeah I report them, but they come too often, I doubt staff is being able to ban them all in a timely manner.

(Edit: I see you say you're removing the comments - but really, if the account is new and clearly only made to create spam, you should be banning the entire accounts, IMHO)

I reported these, too, and two more the other day. Can we really block users? I must look into that.

we do ban the accounts. They make more, and more, and more. And they're using a VPN or somehow changing their ISP.

The first post or comment the spammers make is the key. You have to find a way to detect URLs in their posts and stop them before they leave the comment or post. The community could be of tremendous help if spam is reported promptly, for example make the post invisible automatically if the post gets 3 or more reports of spam. The post removes itself and then deal with the spammer backstage lol

 for example make the post invisible automatically if the post gets 3 or more reports of spam. The post removes itself and then deal with the spammer backstage lol

Do you know how much this would be abused? Any person with a couple of clone accounts to cause havoc for anyone they don't like.

There are a couple of IFs a developer can implement to avoid havoc. IF 1st post + IF membership not older than 2 days + IF 3 reports of spam = hide post from viewing. The reason I'm saying 2 days old for membership is because of time zones. The spammer could be originating from a different time zone, today is the 7th, but it's already the 8th in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Australia, etc

Whenever I get a post to my gallery or see a forum post that looks like spam I always report the post as spam, but in addition I then check the user account too. If the user account also smacks of a spam account I report that as spam too (the account being created the same day as the spam post is a good, or should I say bad, sign. The spam posts and accounts I've reported do seem to get removed quite quickly)

Perhaps Renderosity needs some sort of 'good behaviour' period before allowing any newly created account to add any links of any sort anywhere ? Good behaviour could be as simple as not posting any comment that gets reported as (and confirmed by a mod/admin as being) spam. 

But it looks to me as if the bots are already pre-empting that idea. I got two new followers yesterday. Both are new user accounts created yesterday. Neither has posted any spam comment to my gallery. Both have a user icon that looks like a (fake?) company logo. Both have a link to what looks like a (fake?) company website - no way I'm going to click those links! Neither 'company' has anything to do with what Renderosity does (one pretends to be medical, the other cybersecurity). Both are apparently following 9 people. One has included three social links. I was going to report both as spam accounts because I'm fairly sure that's what they are... but neither has (yet) posted any spam to my gallery so I haven't reported them. Yet.

Just the same, I would advise reporting it.  Those are click-bait posts soliciting your attention.  It's better to prevent a possible cyberattack than have Renderosity blamed for spreading a virus.

Yes, please report those. We do our best to keep an eye out for spammers, but there is a limited number of us working on this and some areas of the site are too extensive for us to check efficiently.

RedPhantom posted at 3:22 PM Wed, 6 November 2024 - #4491054

we do ban the accounts. They make more, and more, and more. And they're using a VPN or somehow changing their ISP.

When I say this, it's not about the moderation team, but about whoever is in charge of the software behind the site: most sites have tools to catch spam bots before they can post, or automatically as they post. Stuff like detecting mass-created accounts, repeat posts in short time between them, links included in the very first posts of the account, captchas to post links, etc.

You're only seeing spam in the gallery comments and forums, we solved the spamming of the new art gallery, but I can't give details of how for obvious reasons. It will take time to build the same system for the gallery comments and forums. It's coming. Eventually, you'll never see any spam again. Make sure when you report spam in the comments, you use 'report comment', not 'report user'.

That's good news, Wolfenshire - thank you!