5 replies to this topic

[Ian]

Why is WhatsonStage being hit by so much spam this week? The board was just just as open to attack in its previous guise, and this seems to me to be the only message board / chat-room format to be receiving such a sustained attack.

Is it simply the lack of moderation at present?

Is it a disgruntled WoS person trying to sabotage the new board?


Answers on a postcard to ....

[Paul]

Spambots having now found the board.

[Belle]

Because they can.  I hope that 9am monday morning there's some moderators appointed!

[Matthew Winn]

Why is WhatsonStage being hit by so much spam this week? The board was just just as open to attack in its previous guise, and this seems to me to be the only message board / chat-room format to be receiving such a sustained attack.

Is it simply the lack of moderation at present?

Is it a disgruntled WoS person trying to sabotage the new board?
Answers on a postcard to ....

Part of it is an attempt to influence Google and similar search engines that rank pages based on the number of links to each page. The spammers create posts with hundreds of links to the same few sites, so whenever Google's spiders crawl the attacked forums they see loads of links to the spammer's site and give it a better ranking.

To do that they need forum software that they know accepts links. This forum is using well-known software now.

[David]

But we were starting to get the same kind of spam on the old board too- I think anywhere without compulsory registration and moderators is likely to be susceptible.