Recent Forum spam

[frictioncircle]

Junk postings have spiked over the past few weeks... how best to reach forum administration about this garbage?

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 424#p71424

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 426#p71426

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 951#p70951
http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 428#p71428

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 426#p71426

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 425#p71425

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16434

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 423#p71423

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 422#p71422

http://www.mybmwi3.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 421#p71421

[eNate]

Flag icon, lower left of each post.

[frictioncircle]

Interesting, eNate, there are no icons lower left for me.

Looks like the flag icon (upper right when logged in, next to the "quote" icon) will do the trick – hadn't noticed that before, thank you!

[eNate]

Oh, look at that, mobile and desktop have the flag in opposite corners.

[frictioncircle]

I've flagged nearly 20 posts.

How long will it be before admin will be able to take this junk down?

[3pete]

I've flagged nearly 20 posts.

How long will it be before admin will be able to take this junk down?

If there is any chance this forum (perhaps the whole "my-electric-car" network) has more than 50 million monthly users, it currently might be illegal to remove those posts thanks to Texas's Attorney General. (Warning: article linked includes profanity https://www.techdirt.com/2022/05/12/the ... mediately/)

That said, I assume the actual reason is more due to lack of the admin's time based on how long previous spam has stayed up after I flagged it.

Lastly, I am slightly intrigued by the theme of this spam. It is fairly innocuous (at this point) but perhaps that's because more egregious types would have been auto-flagged or something.

[EvanstonI3]

Lastly, I am slightly intrigued by the theme of this spam. It is fairly innocuous (at this point)

That's because there are probably times when the inline links they posted don't work (forum stripped them off) and other times it is just a test/placeholder for a sleeper account to see what kind of reaction (or lack of) comes from moderators. Also- once a user is approved they may also be using the account to try to send Private Messages to other Registered users. The spam or scam will be in the PM, not the public comment. Some forums will not allow a new user to send PMs unless they have posted "X" amount of comments first, so they post bland, innocuous comments to meet the threshold of being allowed to PM others.

I moderate another forum elsewhere and it used to be inundated with this kind of stuff. I now check all emails/IP addresses of new users with a web-based spammer database and just nuke them if they are on it.