And here comes the nightly spam

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Oct 2, 2015

Seems to happen about this time every night now.

We're trying our best to get rid of it as it appears. However, the spammers target us when the majority of the mods/admins are either offline or asleep.

I'll also mention that the spam is the worst I've ever seen it in the 10+ years I've been on these forums. They're bombarding us with nonsensical jibberish.

mrsboots87 · Oct 2, 2015

Has anyone figured out the reason? Like why is someone or a group of people trying to overload this site with weird garbage posts? There are not weird links. Usually just what looks like an international phone number and garbled words. Did an old use just get really pissed off and decide to flood the site? It seems to go back and forth between the student forum (which I frequent) and the general nursing forum. I know the point is to irritate people and boy are they succeeding.

FloridaBeagle · Oct 2, 2015

Maybe there should be a limit on how many posts you can post in a timeframe, like twitter does.

anewsns · Oct 2, 2015

I don't get the point of spam , or bots. Or spam bots. Who is getting something out of this ? I appreciate the mods and anyone behind the scenes taking care of it.

caliotter3 · Oct 2, 2015

The same cycle of spamming can be observed on other sites where I work as site staff. Probably can be found at one time or another on all sites. There are steps that the site technical staff can take to combat the spamming, but then later on the spammers infiltrate again and the cycle starts anew. It helps when sites have staff from different time zones around the world who work at different times. Insomniac staff are also an advantage. Personally I like to patrol the new registrations and zap them before they even get a chance to post!

TheGooch · Oct 2, 2015

I don't get the point of spam , or bots. Or spam bots. Who is getting something out of this ? I appreciate the mods and anyone behind the scenes taking care of it.

Me too.

I'm puzzled how these bot are able to post in a forum where you need to sign in to do so. Weird.

iluvivt, BSN, RN · Oct 2, 2015

yes really annoying. Is there any harm if you inadvertently click on it?

ixchel · Oct 2, 2015

No harm in clicking them. The numbers are phone numbers, I believe.

Editorial Team / Admin · Oct 2, 2015

I've said it before- I think there needs to be a minimum post requirement before one can start a thread. Maybe that will help cut down the number of spam threads because they are starting new threads instead of posting in existing threads. Even if just as a quick experiment to see if it helps.

Farawyn · Oct 2, 2015

maybe there should be a limit on how many posts you can post in a timeframe, like twitter does.

nooooooooooooooooooo!!!