When Spambots Attack...

@Gamer_152 said:

@ZombiePie said:

@Gamer_152 said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fuck these internet football robots.

At least the spam bots are advertising the superior version of football more than the silly football game non-American and non-civilized countries celebrate.

Joke's on you Zombie, I don't give a fuck about sports.

+1

@Sweep said:

@Gamer_152 said:

@ZombiePie said:

@Gamer_152 said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fuck these internet football robots.

At least the spam bots are advertising the superior version of football more than the silly football game non-American and non-civilized countries celebrate.

Joke's on you Zombie, I don't give a fuck about sports.

+1

You are all just proving my point that all of the European moderators are communist scum.

@Sweep: Thanks for letting us know Sweep, I have been flagging them as I thought it was the correct thing to do, so could check to see if my karma needs resetting?

@Sweep said:

@Gamer_152 said:

@ZombiePie said:

@Gamer_152 said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fuck these internet football robots.

At least the spam bots are advertising the superior version of football more than the silly football game non-American and non-civilized countries celebrate.

Joke's on you Zombie, I don't give a fuck about sports.

+1

You are all just proving my point that all of the European moderators are communist scum.

@adam1808 said:

We all know what is to blame: soccer.

sport in general, it was basketball the other week.

@poisonmonkey: Just checked -- your karma was either reset or it's been perfectly fine, so you're good.

@PsEG: Many thanks for checking

@Sweep said:

@AlisterCat: I reset it for you. I should probably mention in the OP that we can reset anyone's karma if it gets used up flagging stuff.

I've been here for years and I don't even what this karma system is. lol

I flagged a lot of those things, sorry I didnt realize. I don't usually flag anything but those seemed like pretty gnarly offenders. How do I know who the moderators are to PM them. Is there a list on the site?

Also, is there anyway to see your Karma?

If my karma could be reset I'd appreciate it

@s10129107: There is in the site redesign.

@DeF: It's all in the FAQ. Dunno why we bother though, it's not like anyone reads it. *Sigh*

@dungbootle: done

@Sweep said:

@s10129107: There is in the site redesign.

Was. I can't see it on anybody anymore.

@adam1808 said:

We all know what is to blame: soccer.

On this topic, I actually found it interesting when I Googled the results of this past weeks Man City V. Sunderland game and saw a Giantbomb thread as the 4th result. I got super excited and then bummed as I got a deleted page, and now it all makes sense.

Can someone explain the Karma system to me? I still don't get how that underlying hidden feature thing works.

THEY ARE ATTACKING AT THIS MOMENT

@LiquidPrince said:

Can someone explain the Karma system to me? I still don't get how that underlying hidden feature thing works.

I discussed it earlier in this thread - I'll copy & paste:

Here is a link to Sean Coonce's blog about the karma system as it was originally launched almost four years ago, and it has remained unchanged (for better or worse, mostly worse) since then. We are working with the engineers during the redesign process and they are aware of the changes we would like to see with the system..chief among them being if a user flags a piece of content and we concur, they get their flag point back.

@MB said:

@LiquidPrince said:

Can someone explain the Karma system to me? I still don't get how that underlying hidden feature thing works.

I discussed it earlier in this thread - I'll copy & paste:

Here is a link to Sean Coonce's blog about the karma system as it was originally launched almost four years ago, and it has remained unchanged (for better or worse, mostly worse) since then. We are working with the engineers during the redesign process and they are aware of the changes we would like to see with the system..chief among them being if a user flags a piece of content and we concur, they get their flag point back.

Perfect. Thanks.

Will keep in mind. There is a karma system here? I had no idea. I wonder what else I am ignorant of.

Huh, I was wondering about this lately, especially after seeing a wave of spam threads a few days ago and wanting to flag further but not being able to. I should find the "PM mods button" more often it seems.

. . . run for your life!

@Sweep said:

@DeF: It's all in the FAQ. Dunno why we bother though, it's not like anyone reads it. *Sigh*

The problem with that is that this site has tons of various FAQs with the most relevant ones being "hidden" in the forums and I doubt most people think they need to read a Forum FAQ since they probably used forums before. After I read your response I immediately went to the Site FAQ because I thought that's where I had to look, then I found nothing but the outdated "what is this website?" thing and remember that there were forum specific FAQs.

It's just not very user friendly or intuitive, is all. If you know you're looking for stuff like that you can find it but otherwise you can be like me and never know a karma system even exists for three whole years. :-)

Stuff like that is hard to fix, I know. Probably impossible without designing a whole new forum UI.

@DeF: There is one pinned forum thread with links to only a couple of different threads in it...they aren't really buried at all, it's right there in the stickies and has been for a long time. There is a Forum FAQ and a Wiki FAQ, a Forum Rules document, and one main thread that is stickied in the forums that points to all of this stuff from one location.

The karma system should be mostly transparent and users can't even see their own karma level, so it's not surprising you didn't know about it. Most users shouldn't ever need to worry about it, it's mainly there to stop spammers and people who are trying to post porn or something on the boards when there aren't any moderators around.

This sounds like fun.

Dear Moderator

THEY'RE FUCKIN EVERYONE DUDER!! fucking UFC and BALL GAMES, THERE'S NO ESCAPE!! protect your gold motherfucker, cause it's game, FUCKING, over, man. GAME OVER!!!

Sincerely, TheHT

How about making it so that new users can't create new threads until they've posted at least 5 times? And if they use spam posts to get those numbers up, it's easy enough for other users in threads to flag them beforehand.

I know it makes the site *slightly* less friendly to new comers but it would surely avoid this issue at least.

SPAM ATTACK!

crap, went to the bottom of the home page this morning and saw this thread followed by a bunch of spam threads!

crap, went to the bottom of the home page this morning and saw this thread followed by a bunch of spam threads!

We are still being attacked. TO YOUR BATTLE STATIONS, MEN

I just read this after flagging a few.

Whoops, sorry about that.

This has been happening on comic vine for months.I'm surprised they just discovered Gaint Bomb by scrolling all the way down and finding their news.

@Sweep: It's all your fault.

Good to know, because I kept on flagging the random spam posts I kept seeing individually.

@moywar700 said:

This has been happening on comic vine for months.I'm surprised they just discovered Gaint Bomb by scrolling all the way down and finding their news.

It's been happening here for months and months as well, it's like playing Whack-A-Mole. Sometimes the volume of spam is higher than others though, like what we have been experiencing over the last week.

We do get a lot of the same spammers from CV and vice-versa, though. They even use the same usernames sometimes.

It's been more noticeable lately because mods and staff have been away on vacation or visiting their families over the holidays. I think the worst is behind us, however. Thanks to everyone from the community who has helped by flagging or contacting the mods, we have been able to react relatively effectively.

Will do, spambots are the worst. I used to moderate on a forum, I know how much it sucks.

This is probably important but more importantly I want a hamburger at the top of the forum.

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, @Sweep !

@End_Boss said:

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, @Sweep !

I will not apologise for art.

They seem to be attacking again, welp.

Oh my I didnt know that ... so no flagging , gotcha. PM account it is then

Mobilize, gentlemen.

Many of the sites that are being spammed are have domains that are registered by godaddy, I emailed some links of the sites to abuse@godaddy.com, asking if they could do anything.

Got this response:

We can investigate this issue for you to determine the source of problem but we will need additional information:

Please reply to this message with a screen shot of the offending message post and a copy of the source code for the page which contains this message.

Go Daddy does not allow weblog, guestbook or website forum spam and will take action against any individual that violates our Anti Spam Policy. If you can supply the information outlined above we will initiate our investigation immediately, thank you for your cooperation.

So if you see another spam thread, and the sites are registered through godaddy, email them a copy of the sourcecode of the thread and a screenshot. I will certainly do that.

You see what the registrar of a website is here: http://www.wmtips.com/tools/info/

@taoyuan said:

wow, my god. this phone looks like a sport car, so interesting, isn't it? see: http://baid.ws/atuQ

Relevant.

@nianguo said:

oh, my god. this store is the best one I have seen. you can buy whatever you want. all are free shipping + good quality. so lucky today. many free gift wait for us. we don't miss: (Stupid link)

no f'ing way

@adam1808 said:

We all know what is to blame: soccer.

its called FOOTBALL!

@august said:

Attack of the Spambots is my least favorite Star Wars movie.

haaaaaaa snarf