Another 2, I think... :)

Do tell? I only see rumparee. The other online users are you*, I, Brooke, and Foley.


*You're invisible, actually, but I still know you're on. :p

There was someone else earlier today whose name I don't recall anymore, but he was a spammer...

Yes, I'm wearing the One Ring, and you can't see me! But you can hear me speak, and you know I'm here! ;)

All in honour of my first WW game. As is my siggy. :p

Would that have been the one who was advertising cyber security, of all things? I nearly laughed my head off about that one. A spambot capable of self irony, who would have thought it!

HAHAHA!!!! :D Who would have thought of that indeed!!!

I think that's the one. But I might be wrong. They all look alike and there's too many of them.

Are you referring to; alecia05, charrmaelydee, lllopez1518, bratt01, darian11, or kitty123. All of whom have registered today, and all of whom seem to be advertising either dog portraits or plumbing....There's more from yesterday, but I got tired of going through the member's list, and not being able to just ban the things....Or the one Pitch mentioned, that posted three separate threads....

I have the feeling that there are just two real people behind all the spammers, since there are only 2 things being advertised, as you said.

lllopaz and charrr.....something look familiar. So I take my words back: I saw 2 other spammers other than rumparee. But there are more that I (luckily) didn't notice.

EDIT: I just remembered someone whos User Name was NotASpammer. Funnily enough he didn't have a signature... :p

This guy looks familiar. I'm sure this is not his first time here! :mad:

Is this some spammer attack? Today I neg-repped a tirade for two of them that posted and there are more of them lurking.... And they are not even trying to look intelligent!

I suppose we will get more even may be as the hobbit hype increases. It is frustrating when you see people registering which you are 99.9% sure are spammers but you can't do anything until they actually post.

Seconded!!!

I sometimes wonder how they remember their usernames. Most of them wait a few days after joining before they post.

It would drive me nuts if I had to type cug56UFj04k or something of that sort every time I log in... But most of them only log in once.

It's frustrating, even as a mod, that you have to wait for the spammer's first post to infractionate them into banhood.

Then when it finally does, Aiwendil beats me to it. ;)

Question to all of you (I want to find the degree of my craziness): does someone else also sometimes click on the name of the "newest member" to see whether they have been banned already? :rolleyes:

Yes.

Haha, you two are funny. :D

(Now for some reason what I just wrote struck me as something Lommy would write. :eek: )

Oh for goodness sake!... There has been a spammer here for the past few days, reusing its* name, but putting a different number after it every time. It's up to 5 already. :rolleyes:

I don't remember how many times I've reported it already, and I'm afraid to think how many more there would have to be. :mad:

I am sort of wondering, though, did all those spammers actually watch/read LOTR or did the research to find out the new anti-spam code?

*No, they don't deserve a gender, or recognition that they are in fact people -- in my books they aren't, not until they start acting as such.

Reusing names is old hat for these cretins.

I doubt they bother to do any "research" about Tolkien or LOTR. At the most they might paraphrase or copy/paste from a legitimate post.

As for the anti-spam word-type requirement, I would think all it takes to get by that (or for that matter, a CAPTCHA), is a live person behind the spam instead of an automated program.
IP bans can be an avenue, but there are certainly ways around that too.

What they don't get is that they're wasting their efforts posting on this forum. The caliber of the intellect here is far too great to click on any of their worthless links.

spam-a-lot
 

I'd change the anti-spam question again, but it's quicker and easier to just delete the spammer.

If you think this is bad, wait until The Hobbit is released. It's gonna get crazy.

Oh yes. I think the main reason this forum is targeted is its high level of activity. The next movie ought to really ramp things up.

Indeed! Imagine a spambot who would keep coming back again and again, using a new number after its name each time, for like, for example fifty-four times... these spambots are the worst, before you know it, they get over 4000 posts and you might actually start believing they are genuine people...

The delineation between spammer and real poster on this site is usually pretty clear-cut; however, on some sites I've been to, one can almost appreciate the sentience of spammers over the puerility of posts made by some allegedly "real" people.

:Merisu:

That's horrible! :(

(The other sites, I mean; it's terrific that the Downs is different)

I have to say, Morth, I've gone so far as to report a real person as a bot-suspect even here. More than once, I think.

I'm probably guilty of that myself. But when it looks like a spammer, and writes like a spammer....

Within the past few weeks, I've seen a veritable explosion of random-looking User Names popping up as new members. I refuse to believe they all have innocent intentions.
At this moment, there are nine registering. Nazgûl!! :eek:

They names are all similar in that they are nonsensical, too. We must purge them.

By the flames of Orodruin, they have multiplied! Emergency!

I haven't seen a single one for a few weeks until yesterday. I kept wanting to comment that we have defeated the spammers, but I didn't want to jinx it. And today I log on and see that I'm surrounded by the foul creatures! :eek:

Over a dozen right now. There can be nothing good from this.

There are even more now! I fear the anti-spam measures have been breached. There's no way all these registrations have gone through approved procedures.

And at least as of the moment of writing, they seem to have a fixation on the New Silmarillion forum, of all places. :confused:

There are 31 of them for 4 visible Downers! That's an 8:1 ratio. Let's fix that. *whips out cybersword*

Edit: in the time it took me to post, they multiplied to 36 and the ratio went up to 9:1. Oh boy. :eek:

Edit 2: in the time it took me to edit, their numbers (online) went down to 29. There is hope yet?

Edit 3: 42 of them. Heck, I can't edit fast enough to keep track of statistics of such an epic invasion!

Edit4: 50 of them and we're two visible Downers down, bringing the ratio to 25:1!!!

I think I'll stop counting now, because when I refreshed the page the list got slightly longer again... oh man. Not good at all...

It's really getting outrageous. What are they doing? :mad:

http://www.stentorian.com/antispam/ring_spm.jpg

And....it looks like they're gone! Is it too early to say, Long live the Barrow-Wight! Praise him with great praise? :D

EDIT- *sigh*, as of 14:47 here's another registering.

Too soon, just me and a dozen lower lines from an eyesight test chart just now:rolleyes:

Hmm, only one on right now. ??? :Merisu::D Dare we hope?

They've been purged a few times, I think. We got above 3200 at one point, then down to 3150, and I think we broke 3200 again before back to where we are now.

Hopefully we can stop this. What if it's 4chan? Then we're all screwed.

I'm really curious about the motives behind them. What are they after?

Have you considered that, maybe, the bots have grown more sentient, and as a consequence, have developed a taste for Tolkien?

Maybe there is hope for the future after all.