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Why Do They Spam A Forum

Jennifer

Jennifer

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I have over 1k spam posts just in 2 days. What is the purpose of spamming a forum when they know all posts will be deleted and account will be banned?
 
Usually it's an automated bot doing it, and the hope is that it does not get caught.
You would be surprised by the number of forums/sites out that they can do this on that have nobody paying close attention to (absent admins/staff). It gets their spam a presence on the web in that case.
 
Shawn Gossman said:
most are coming from automated programs that just submit spam posts. They aren't being done by humans.
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In some cases it is actually some paid humans creating accounts now to bypass some of the anti-spam functions that are in place on sites. They then create a list of those accounts and submit them to a spammer farm to use so that the bot can then bypass those anti-spam functions.
It is one reason that many admins will place new users post into a moderation period until they have made a set number of posts that have passed moderation.
 
Tracy said:
In some cases it is actually some paid humans creating accounts now to bypass some of the anti-spam functions that are in place on sites. They then create a list of those accounts and submit them to a spammer farm to use so that the bot can then bypass those anti-spam functions.
It is one reason that many admins will place new users post into a moderation period until they have made a set number of posts that have passed moderation.
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I'm seeing a lot of AI-powered bots getting through it, too.

Anyone can create an AI agent for their forum to post and engage with members. That's basically what the AI spam bots are, agents, getting through and engaging with links.

Some are clever too. They look real.
 
Shawn Gossman said:
Anyone can create an AI agent for their forum to post and engage with members.
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Are you using CF Turnstile or what option in Xenforo? The Google one has issues with being able to be bypassed and Q&A style are generally easy to resolve now with the use of AI.
 
One strategy I am using is to avoid direct registration into my forums.
I have put a link in the registration page to another page/or site to fill a form which is like a cart (like purchasing something) to join.
Spam bots in general are not trained to fill out forms to purchase things :)

I got zero spam registration from doing that.
 
Mike30 said:
One strategy I am using is to avoid direct registration into my forums.
I have put a link in the registration page to another page/or site to fill a form which is like a cart (like purchasing something) to join.
Spam bots in general are not trained to fill out forms to purchase things :)

I got zero spam registration from doing that.
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Please explain how do you do it. I have a forum on phpbb.
 
Mike30 said:
One strategy I am using is to avoid direct registration into my forums.
I have put a link in the registration page to another page/or site to fill a form which is like a cart (like purchasing something) to join.
Spam bots in general are not trained to fill out forms to purchase things :)

I got zero spam registration from doing that.
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Yeah... haha. Requiring a paid membership is a great way to avoid spammers!

I remember Big Boards charging $1 to join just to stop spammers. It worked, too.
 
Shawn Gossman said:
Yeah... haha. Requiring a paid membership is a great way to avoid spammers!

I remember Big Boards charging $1 to join just to stop spammers. It worked, too.
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Key word is big board and they have so much to offer their users which is why only paid membership is allowed.

Do you think if Reddit set up to be only used by paid members, would it affect their growth or not?
 
Heatman said:
Key word is big board and they have so much to offer their users which is why only paid membership is allowed.

Do you think if Reddit set up to be only used by paid members, would it affect their growth or not?
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I bet they'd lose a lot of members who don't use it religiously and those who will protest the pay gate addition. But I feel like a lot of their membership would gladly pay if it wasn't too much.
 
Shawn Gossman said:
I bet they'd lose a lot of members who don't use it religiously and those who will protest the pay gate addition. But I feel like a lot of their membership would gladly pay if it wasn't too much.
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From my personal observation with how so many people on Twitter/X complained about paying for the blue tick on the site but still go ahead to pay for it, I believe a lot of Reddit users would do exactly the same thing.
 
Heatman said:
From my personal observation with how so many people on Twitter/X complained about paying for the blue tick on the site but still go ahead to pay for it, I believe a lot of Reddit users would do exactly the same thing.
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Yeah I paid for the X premium account again even though I said I wouldn't LOL
 
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