Reporting Suspicious Posts?

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Bill_B

I'm admin on another (not sailing/cruising related) forum. What I often see happen is a post like this is made by a new user. Then weeks or months later, they'll edit the post (or their signature) to include whatever spammy links.

My impression is that they do this because the post appears to be on topic enough to not get moderated. Then once enough time has passed, they can edit in their links with low chance of detection. It can then be picked up by search engines, etc

It's entirely possible that this is a newbie that just happened to post on an old thread.

But based on my personal experience, I agree that it's a bit suspicious.

Thank you for confirming my suspicions. If it were only one or two of these, I'd say someone just stumbled in and wanted to blurt out a pointless comment. But I'm seeing them more and more. There's got to be an angle.

Originally Posted by StuM

A quick google on the name of the the new member in the linked post turns up half a dozen forums on totally different subjects that he has just joined in the last day or so where he has immediately posted a vague comment in one thread.

Thank you for doing my homework for me there. Point well made.

Originally Posted by Oeanda

Seen this stuff many times and I assume some of it is the work of bots. Random gibberish apropos of nothing. It’s going to suck when they get more sophisticated.

I couldn't help but wonder the same thing. Maybe they are just training bots to fly under the mod's radar.

When I see a pointless post I just move on. I don't run a forum. I'm not a moderator. But if I were, I'd be watching these "harmless" posts pretty closely. Something new is going on out there, and chances are it's not something good.

[chris95040]

All you folks who thought that post was legit, want to help me get a giant sack of money out of Nigeria? [emoji23]

[Rumrace]

I read the post and saw no reason to take cover and release the safety.
I think it’s pretty common if not funny to enthusiastically contribute to a lost thread.
I don’t have an opinion on appliances so interesting.
Why don’t we ask the OP’s do their own cut off with thanks for contribution then archived for reference and prosperity. If the OP is unavailable we’d trust administration to close it with comment at a given time line.
The person making the comment in the suggested thread is a regular contributor maybe new like me ( boating since 1958) to the group. If I spent time judging people I’d judge them as a pretty nice person contributing and made a funny mistake.
An admin told me I was posting on an old thread but it was a good contribution if you were here 2 years ago. We both chuckled I said doh.
Product plugging don’t we all love brands.
Buck knives.

[nigel1]

But oddly enough, if you google that particular users name, he/she comes up on a lot of forums (joined very recently) and has just made one post on each one.

[Rumrace]

Oh. I was pretty sure I saw them on other threads. Why don’t admins have a chat with them. I’m pretty naive on that stuff. Social media is just plain weird but so are the cliques in yacht clubs. Some people come on social media to find an argument to vent. It’s therapy time. Boat forum is wrong place for mental health therapy. Most boaters are all ready nuts.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

I've been seeing more 1st posts by new users in years-old threads. These posts don't specifically appear to be selling anything or pushing any agenda, but they seem totally pointless. I assume there's some benefit to the poster, although I don't know what that might be.

Should we be reporting these?

Here's an example:
https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3639960

YES PLEASE.
The member whose post you linked went on to spam and has now been banned.

Originally Posted by Bill_B

……I'm admin on another (not sailing/cruising related) forum. What I often see happen is a post like this is made by a new user. Then weeks or months later, they'll edit the post (or their signature) to include whatever spammy links.

My impression is that they do this because the post appears to be on topic enough to not get moderated. Then once enough time has passed, they can edit in their links with low chance of detection. It can then be picked up by search engines, etc

It's entirely possible that this is a newbie that just happened to post on an old thread.

But based on my personal experience, I agree that it's a bit suspicious.

Precisely .

They don’t often turn out to be simply “newbies”, but to date we have been cautious about banning them without further evidence of spamming. We simply don’t have the capacity to do internet searches on each one of these, nor to we have the capacity to monitor all of their subsequent posts.

We need to start to become more agressive dealing with them. Genuine members simply don’t start posting this way (one liners vaguely related to the thread topic, but unrelated to cruising, particularly when an old thread is resurrected). In the past they tended to be far more blatant, which was easy to deal with. This new trend is harder to manage.

Originally Posted by StuM

It's also done occassionally to build up posts to spam everyone with private messages. ( You need a minimum number of posts before you can send PMs to members)

Yes, they certainly do that too.

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Thank you for confirming my suspicions. If it were only one or two of these, I'd say someone just stumbled in and wanted to blurt out a pointless comment. But I'm seeing them more and more. There's got to be an angle.
…..
When I see a pointless post I just move on. I don't run a forum. I'm not a moderator. But if I were, I'd be watching these "harmless" posts pretty closely. Something new is going on out there, and chances are it's not something good.

Yes, we are seeing them more and more. I put in a couple of hours last night and found about a dozen of these. They are tending to be sneakier now, sometimes even posting in “Meet and Greets” first. One even started quoting posts and adding promotional links to the quote.

Please don’t just “move on” when you see ”pointless posts”. Please hit the little red and white triangle and report the post. Just add “Possible spammer” to alert us. It would take less than a minute and would help us tremendously.

The big problem is when these spammers / scammers start approaching members in Classifieds via PM in an attempt to weasel money out of them. If they have an established posting history, members are far less likely to be suspicious.

We can’t possibly read every thread let alone every post, so many of the spammers go undetected. We may seen omnipotent , but we are not. We are just a bunch of volunteers giving up some of our limited spare time trying to keep cruising related discussions running smoothly. Keeping the forum free of spam is a big (and unseen) part of this. Any help would be very appreciated.

SWL

[Rumrace]

Wow. Sorry for doubting. Seems bizarre. Don’t they know how frugal we are.

[CaptTom]

Thank you, SWL! I didn't want to be seen as a whiner, but it sure looks to me like this odd activity is becoming a trend. I've managed quite a few web sites and there's always a new and more insidious method of spamming or scamming to watch out for.

[JPA Cate]

Let me add to Seaworthy Lass's YES PLEASE. I am just learning to catch these, and it goes against all the instincts to welcome a new member. Having you guys alert us will be a huge help.

Thanks in advance,

Ann