PaulStoffregen
Well-known member
Spam is rising again. Reporting spam quickly really does help! If you see spam, please report it. Speed matters. Just writing "spam" in the report is fine, no need for more.
Reports affect more than just 1 message. If the spammer has created other accounts by connecting from the same IP number, all their other dormant accounts get banned before they're able to spew more spam, and that IP number gets blocked for a couple weeks. Their IP number and email address also get sent to anti-spam blacklist services.
Occasionally I also use the IP number to look up their internet provider. Most of the recent spam is coming through VPN services. Sometimes I'll permanently block their whole network. XenForo keeps limited stats on IP range blocking, which shows more attempts keep coming and getting blocked from those bad VPN services.
I'm considering whether to do more. Another spam issue happens where spammers edit their ChatGPT-style message days or weeks later, usually as part of unethical SEO promoting links to websites to Google Bot rather than intended to be seen by humans. With vBulletin we had a 2 hour time limit to edit messages. So far I've not found this setting for XenForo, but is must exist somehow, maybe as a mod to install? Before I do this, wanted to discuss here.
Thanks to everyone already reporting. It really is helping!
Reports affect more than just 1 message. If the spammer has created other accounts by connecting from the same IP number, all their other dormant accounts get banned before they're able to spew more spam, and that IP number gets blocked for a couple weeks. Their IP number and email address also get sent to anti-spam blacklist services.
Occasionally I also use the IP number to look up their internet provider. Most of the recent spam is coming through VPN services. Sometimes I'll permanently block their whole network. XenForo keeps limited stats on IP range blocking, which shows more attempts keep coming and getting blocked from those bad VPN services.
I'm considering whether to do more. Another spam issue happens where spammers edit their ChatGPT-style message days or weeks later, usually as part of unethical SEO promoting links to websites to Google Bot rather than intended to be seen by humans. With vBulletin we had a 2 hour time limit to edit messages. So far I've not found this setting for XenForo, but is must exist somehow, maybe as a mod to install? Before I do this, wanted to discuss here.
Thanks to everyone already reporting. It really is helping!
