What's with all the spam on the forum?

[NightStalker 407]

Are the forum moderators asleep at the wheel?

 

How come the forums are filling up with rubbish and blatant spam?

 

Isn't there a spam filter on the forum, or even better, a real live person who moderates the thing, who can then simply delete all these spam posts and block the IP addresses?

 

It was a nuisance, but it's getting to the annoying stage now.

 

 

[jefito 5,598]

There are moderators, and there are moderators : https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/65693-moderation-and-member-leveling-changes-to-the-forum/. The user moderators (those with 300+ posts) can hide these posts, if they choose, but they cannot delete posts, nor can they mark a user as a spammer, which hides all of their posts (the old Evangelist crew could do this, and it was pretty useful), and and certainly cannot block IP addresses. I keep hoping for a better solution, as deleting spam posts is a drag, and I know that Geoff is trying to get some traction behind the scenes, but it hasn't taken hold yet.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Thankfully all three of us who have posted here can now delete spam! 

Many people have been vocal about the ongoing issues, and EN staff are definitely aware... Still feeling the ripples of the transition away from Evangelists. 

[jbenson2 2,149]

Nightstalker,

 

Last week, I quit deleting (hiding) spam. 

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/73976-300-clean-up-crew-i-quit/

 

I was deleting dozens each morning, and then, after reading about the proposed price increase and Evernote's shift in direction, a thought crossed my mind. 

• The spams are mainly generated in India
• Most of the spams were seen and removed by people in Asia, Australia, Europe or eastern USA customers.
• So all these spams were being cleaned up before the Evernote employees in the California time zones were even awake, 

Sure, the administrator will be able to see our actions, but the bulk of Evernote employees don't see the massive amounts of spam because their customers had already done the leg work.

 

Now, my procedure is to open a bunch of the spam in new tabs, then close the tabs, and refresh "View New Content:. It takes less time as the spam removal feature.  This process (1) hides the spam from my view, but (2) keeps it open for others to complain about and eventually (3) for the late risers at Evernote corporate on Pacific Standard Time to see..

 

So, in my little way, I am helping to make the spam posts more visible to ALL the Evernote employees who visit the forum, not just the administrator. Perhaps the Evernote-evening-support people will help, but from what I can see on this forum, they have had minimal impact and are mighty busy with support task.

 

Edit: with the new decision that Evernote Support avoid answering questions from free users (and direct them to this forum), there are more new "eyeballs" here on the forum. That makes this forum more attractive for the spammers.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

 

Sure, the administrator will be able to see our actions, but the bulk of Evernote employees don't see the massive amounts of spam because their customers have already done the leg work.

 

Yes, the person who can actually do something about the spam (Geoff Barry), knows all too well exactly how much spam is being removed.

 

I can't see what good it would do for other staff (e.g., the Product Managers like Jackolicious or jbignert) to know how much spam was kicking around here. What, so they can complain to gbarry? 

[jbenson2 2,149]

 

 

Sure, the administrator will be able to see our actions, but the bulk of Evernote employees don't see the massive amounts of spam because their customers have already done the leg work.

 

Yes, the person who can actually do something about the spam (Geoff Barry), knows all too well exactly how much spam is being removed.

 

I can't see what good it would do for other staff (e.g., the Product Managers like Jackolicious or jbignert) to know how much spam was kicking around here. What, so they can complain to gbarry? 

 

 

I am thinking, (perhaps naively), that these technical staff-level people will become more vocal to the Evernote decision makers who do not visit this forum - marketing / CTO / executives, etc.

 

I realize that my input has little to no impact, but if other users also quit fighting spam for Evernote, perhaps Evernote will finally take a more aggressive stand.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

I don't understand why most of this spam can't be prevented by spam filters.  EMail servers have been effectively doing this for years now.

[Metrodon 2,188]

Something is really broken with the spam protection on here. I use a couple of other forums for tech support and pure football nastiness with far greater traffic than this place gets and never see any spam at all.

[NightStalker 407]

Thanks for the replies, team   I didn't know that I had THE POWER , once I passed the 300 post mark.

 

What amazes and amuses me, though, is the question: Why spam these forums in the first place? Surely, there wouldn't be a single idiot who would even consider responding to spam, especially all this freaky-character-laden rubbish?

 

Surely there wouldn't be anyone here desperate enough to....  Oh, hang on a minute

 

But Metro and JMichael are right - surely there are automated spam filters that work in the same way (Bayesian) as my email spam filters, that can be applied to a forum like this?

 

After all, the forum software already has automated filters that stop me posting words like cr*p - which is not even a seriously offensive word? But the porn spam gets through...

[Wordsgood 526]

Just came across a couple I can't hide using my android phone. This is the title of them:

Mumbai Best Mumbai Best Service Girl Call For Entertain@~((%09OO48S9948%))~@ Andheri Call Girls, CheMbUR Call Girls NuMbeR GoreGaoN College call Girls

It comes up with an error message saying there's too many redirects to open them. But opening them is the only way I can bring up the Moderation tools on my phone. Can someone - preferably Evernote staff delete and BAN them.

Thanks.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Just went a (teeny) round Wordsgood. Thanks for doing most of the dirty work for us today.

[Wordsgood 526]

Your welcome!

Oh, I was feeling annoyed about something else so took it out on several spam posts. I replaced the titles with

"SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM!!!" before hiding them. Overkill, I know, but it relieved some stress!

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Yes... I saw that! I was going to open one to see if it was a post about spam... but, alas, you made short work of your handiwork before I could get to it. 

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Aaaaand cue the immense onslaught of weekend Spam. This morning I have 2.5 pages of spam in the "view new content" screen. Yikes.

[jbenson2 2,149]

The garden-variety type questions increased substantially; as expected, when Evernote Support directed free users to post their questions in this forum.

 

Even though I use the "View New Content" option, I often see 3 to 4 pages of posts of these basic questions peppered with lots of spam. 

 

I no longer bother looking at the General Discussion group. That is where many spam posts are located. But the spammers are wising up and spreading their word to other topics in the forum. So I end up quickly scanning the titles for interesting questions or suggestions. Then I flush the entire lot down the virtual toilet (by clicking on the elephant heads for each forum).

 

I spend more of my time in the forum for Google Keep which figured out how to eliminate spam. By the way, Google Keep now allows real-time collaboration.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

If the smart folk at Evernote are not going to do anything about the spam, at least they should allow for a spam counter under our profile details, to show how much spam each "moderator" has hidden. It might be a nice game for some... You know... just to  mix things up a bit for the next few weeks - since they're pretty much into impulsive and whimsical changes across the board anyways.

[spg SCOTT 736]

It comes up with an error message saying there's too many redirects to open them. But opening them is the only way I can bring up the Moderation tools on my phone. Can someone - preferably Evernote staff delete and BAN them.

Thanks.

I have run into this myself, not sure exactly what it is. I think I may have opened the thread in a new tab on my phone for it to work. Either that or I have loaded it in the non-mobile view.

[jefito 5,598]

Waiting for some tin-foil fedora wearing person to suggest that Evernote is not beefing up their spam removal in order to keep free user questions down...

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Waiting for some tin-foil fedora wearing person to suggest that Evernote is not beefing up their spam removal in order to keep free user questions down...

 

On a similar note... isn't it tempting to treat some non-spam threads as if they were spam? 

[jefito 5,598]

 

Waiting for some tin-foil fedora wearing person to suggest that Evernote is not beefing up their spam removal in order to keep free user questions down...

 

On a similar note... isn't it tempting to treat some non-spam threads as if they were spam? 

 

My lips are sealed.