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Really?!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:18 am
by Hoot
How many folks do you know, who's birthday is on Halloween? Besides mine?

Out of curiousity, I looked at the bottom of the page to see if my birthday was listed and sure enough, it was. Along with 47 other people.

Looking at their random character, computer generated user names, it is easy to see that every single one was possibly spambot or equivalent generated. I looked at the profile of every one and of the thirty I looked at were all obviously spam generator accounts.So, if you extrapolate that out, we the real members are vastly outnumbered by spambots 47 to 1 (or more). Of the 3354 members, that would work out to about 71 who are real. Do you realize the strain all that flotsam places on the forum software and ultimately the server hardware? It would probably reduce the wear and tear on the system if:

A) Eric installs one of those authentication templates that generate an image of random alpha-numeric characters that the applicant has to repeat back to the form. They are hard for humans to read and nigh impossible for simple text recognition spambots to read.

B) Eric assigns temporary admin permissions to a few, computer administration experienced members, who over a period of time would go through the membership roster and examine the profiles and statistics of suspect members. Once a suspect member is identified as being a spambot and believe me, it's not hard to figure out, that member record would be purged. A sub-forum can be created that only members of a specific function group can view and participate in. They use it as a "back-channel" to discuss forum activity that is suspect and ongoing work to remove junk accounts. That's how we did it on other forums. Some of which were much more heavily utilized than this one by a power of 10.

C) The purged members records would be stored in the odd chance that one of them is somehow (doubtful) wrongly purged, so that it could be restored if that member contacted us.

All of that, having been said. It's a little humbling to realize that if you apply the 47:1 ratio, that there are only about 71 of us out there, who care enough about this caliber, to find and join this forum.

Hoot

Edit: We gained two spambot members while I was typing this. :roll:

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 10:58 am
by Jeepejeep
Geeze, that's pretty sad but if you look at the people who regularly post, it's only a few guys. This is a relatively unknown caliber and not a lot of folks own one so the low number really doesn't shock me. The number of Spam bots does though!

By the way... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 11:55 am
by Texas Sheepdawg
I'll volunteer. I basically camp out here. Especially at night when most normal diaurnal humans are sawing logs. A true Sheepdawg. LOL.

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 12:47 pm
by Colohunter
There are the regulars here, then sometimes the newbies that come looking for advice. I don't post as often as I am on here, but I check the site a lot and there aren't as many new posts per day as some forums. I'm not sure how the programming side of it would work, but you could add a couple moderators to do what you were talking about Hoot. Then those of us that would be moderators could help so that the mudder isn't handling everything.

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:03 pm
by BillytheKid
Trying to put a positive spin on this, considering the high numbers of .450b's that have been sold, I would say that a lot of people care about this caliber.

Since there is no advertisement, and no official recognition from Bushmaster / Remington, I would not expect a lot of people find this forum. Which, I believe, is exactly why we have such high character folks here. I wouldn't want that part to change.

If scanning software cost money, I would be happy to donate some.

I would also help weed out the members list.

Bill

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2011 7:06 pm
by commander faschisto
Same here...I'll help with whatever we need for the scanning software/weeding process.

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:47 am
by BD1
Just taking a quick look through, I'd estimate that a little over 300 of us are "real". What's with the spambots anyway? What's in it for them?
BD

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:56 am
by BillytheKid
most forum spam is for porn sites.

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 10:14 am
by Colohunter
Fortunately we don't get many of the actual spam posts. I always click on the new posts on the right side of the front page and I very rarely see spam posts. I can't remember the last one.

Re: Really?!

PostPosted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 11:25 am
by Beef Stew
I've been more of a lurker than a poster, but if there is anything I can do to help please let me know!

Beef