Hey all,
Just wanted to throw out some thanks for reporting all the spam we’ve gotten lately.
They’re relentless, but I’ll do what I can to ban them. I’ve left the GZ Discord, so I have no way of
contacting the devs directly now about the problem. If anyone’s still on there, feel free
to give them a shout about it. See if anything can be done.
Again, thanks for being vigilant and reporting! Stay awesome.
Zesiir
It’s a lot better now. Really appreciate all the work you’re doing to keep things clean. Thank you!
I just was afraid that the limit for reporting topics as spam could stop me reporting them again.
I left discord, too.
Ey! Are you saying it’s a scam?? I just ordered a container full of rubber dogshit, confident that I had made a bargain…
I banned over 20 spambots last night, and now there’s thirty new ones. That’s too many for me, sorry guys. Unless Avalanche steps in I don’t know what to do anymore.
Tough job, @Zesiir . Given that a hard core of members are holding this forum going, would it be possible to delegate this task to some of the trusted members in here. I can think of a few (and I’m not counting myself in).
Yeah, I’ve used up all my flags for today 
, didn’t even know there is a limit for this… 
Flagging this flood of spam will wear us out in a heartbeat I would suggest to give @Gysbert , @Madchaser , @TimData and yourself the privileges required to delete postings - provided that it is possible and you guys wouldn’t mind the job. The upside would be, that you could delete some of my postings too, when you get too bored with me 
A community-run pub … wouldn’t that be nice 
I did the same now.
Still 111 posts to be flagged.
I guess the limit is about 20 flags per 12h.
Sadly, it could even be hard to find 6 more members, that could flag them actually.
And flagging, like deleting, doesn’t solve the problem. Banning also just helps for a short time… Until new accounts are generated.
Edit: took just a few minutes for 10 more posts. With this speed, we’ll have no chance.
@Zesiir can you at least removed the limit for flagging posts/topics?
Some of these systems have an approval option for new members. Could that be a way to go? How many new members are joining this forum these days anyway?
So, if the system supports this, turn on quarantine for new members and allow regulars to let them in. Could that work?
I’ve been told Avalanche are going to look into it but it may take some time.
Thanks for flagging, everyone.
This goes without saying of course, but don’t click on any suspicious links!
What about permissions for the used characters in a topics title? Can’t you forbide the use of special characters like the ® or ™? Would that stop these bots or would they just change the titles?
I’ve successfully added some “forbidden” characters that the bots use. Maybe that’ll work.
Not sure it’d stop the spam though.
Didn’t help that much.
Still one new topic per second.
Excuse my ignorance, but how do I flag these rogues? I can’t seem to find the button anywhere. I know it might not help, but I’ve got to at least try something, don’t want to loose this forum😞
Do you think it would help if I put a shout out on the subreddit and Discord for assistance with all this? I’ve got a strong presence on both, and such a valuable archive of knowledge shouldn’t be left to drown in a sea of spam.
@Zesiir Maybe just shut down registering for a while until solution is found.
Now they are also spamming into existing topics of regular members.
And / Or take the whole site off-line to clear all the over 1500 spam posts.
Email verification could at least slow down the registering (especially if sending the response email is delayed for a set time (for instance 30 min) that can be adjusted when spam is bad)
I don’t have Admin privileges sadly, so I can’t shut down new members joining. And we don’t have an active Admin at all, so… All we have to do is wait until Avalanche looks into it.
@TimData Please do, this needs more attention.
At the rate this is going, the forums might go down.
This is so worrying, you’re doing a brilliant job. I’ve put a shout out on Discord and created a post on Reddit. Also contacted Avalanche. Their response:
I’ll let you know if anyone offers any actual help. Fingers crossed we can win this one!
No buddy! You left the GZ discord … 
You shall be missed from there! 
