Hello from the U.S.!

[Catherine]

It is not hijacking. All our threads are open. I noticed the pills link. I have done the full ban procedure. I banned a set of IPs. If they annoy us enough, I would put pills in the censorship file. Then it can't even be posted on the forum. First thing I banned some bad words, but I also banned UGG boots. They gave us so much trouble that I have it in for them.

I love the challenge of watching for spammers. It makes this a bit like a computer game. Spot the Spammer. Maybe we could set it up and market it as a game. I suspect most Forum Administrators would love the gave. It could have the option of blowing up the spammer's computer if they cause too much trouble. You win when you remove all spammers from a membership list. I would play it, wait a minute, I am already playing it.

[AnimalFamily]

And then there's those "cheap sunglasses" spammers. They use to drive me up a wall!!
I think you're winning!
...and I just like to tease Bock....about the hijacking, and many other things too!

[Catherine]

Quote:And then there's those "cheap sunglasses" spammers. They use to drive me up a wall!!
I think you're winning!
...and I just like to tease Bock....about the hijacking, and many other things too! Smiley16

These are the things that make the Forum fun. We joke about things and we tease each other. It is great to have a mother daughter team. It adds something to the dynamic.

If we didn't laugh about it the spammers would drive us crazy. Instead, I hope we drive them crazy. I put their emails in a ban list so I can look at them after I delete the membership. I can already see a pattern to which emails designations are going to be spammers. They usually don't even get to post spam. Poor spammers.
What must it be like to be a spammer and be universally despised.
And I enjoy banning them so much.

[Bock]

I'm glad Mama Bear and I are able to entertain!

That must be pretty irritating for them; go through ALL the hassle of creating an email, getting a new IP, signing up a site such as this...only to be banned before they can even make one post? Talk about a morale-crusher.

[Catherine]

I really feel bad for them......not.
It is probably easier for me to ban an email account than it is for them to create one.
That was not true of the old forum software. It was such a slow procedure. Now I ban IP, I ban Email and I delete, one, two, three and done.

[AnimalFamily]

"Easy peasy" as they say. I actually watched Bock do some of that tonight. That's a pretty nice set-up MyBB has for deleting spammers. I figured it wouldn't hurt for me to learn a little. Different software has different ways of doing things.

[Catherine]

Did Bock ban some on your site or on mine? Or both.
We are not having too much spam traffic yet, but we are having some. I am still looking for the best ways to do things. The software is great though. With the old software it took three steps to see the email address and another two to ban it. With this software it is right there and it is one quick step to put something in the ban list. I can see the IP address right away as well. I can even get the IP of a poster who has not registered.

It is good for you to know how to deal with spammers. It is the same as me wanting other administrators. We never want spammers to get the upper hand. I think we are really all on top of the problem.

I just want to know. Why do they do it?

[AnimalFamily]

She was banning a couple on your site, which is what I was watching. I do most of the banning on ours as I am on in the early hours so they are usually gone before she gets there.
I think there are a number of reasons why they do it. 1: to try and sell a product and 2: to collect info and email addresses. I'm sure there are plenty of reasons, I just have never bothered to look into it.
Hackers are much worse than spammers though. I sincerely hope you never have a situation like that here. They can do a lot more damage. Spammers are just more of a nuisance.

[Catherine]

I looked at the list and I can see what she banned. two spammers I deleted today used the same email and IP. They are getting lazy.
So what would hackers do?
We had trolls once. Is that the same thing. I like to check the membership list first thing and make sure there are no problems. I am glad you know how our program works. It is always better to have more of us than there are of them.

Right now non members can post. I suppose we will need to change that. Of course they are spammers. They can be banned, but it is easier to ban a member. We have more info without needing to search for it.

[Bock]

...wait. Non-members can post here?? I definitely need to change that.

Hackers usually mess with the actual coding of a site. They can put foreign code in the wrong place and mess all kinds of things up. Some of them hack into sites looking for financial info and such.

Trolls. Grrrr, those are irritating. They're legitimate human users who go around trying to stir up arguments and insult as many people as possible. It's awful.