Update: Massive Spam Attack

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

And all of a sudden we will have auto translated spam in French, German, English or Spanish.

That's relatively unlikely, because the spam messages that I've seen so far seem to only target Korean users.

[johnnyb]

Thanks, guys!

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I was not suggesting all posts be deleted when a user is banned. But have an option to do so when a user is banned. So a user can be banned but posts left or can be banned and all posts removed wen banned.

I see now. My apologies, the word "option" slipped right by when reading and remembering. Probably an ESL error.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Automatically deleting all posts when user is banned is a bad idea, IMO. You would not want to get rid of possible legit and helpful posts.

+1
People can get banned way down the road for other than SPAM.
That may not invalidate earlier posts or threads they started.
Using a Bulldozer to remove content, when a spoon will suffice, has its drawbacks.
I realize the huge amount of work this entails.

A deeper question: Why just General? (or did I miss other hits? I know 3 places it has not hit )

[maddz]

I did notice some spam posts in other forums from the chinese (?) spam from a couple of weeks back, but even then it was General being hit 9 times out of 10.

I used to manage some Yahoo Groups back in the day, and there was a setting there that admin could toggle to moderate new users. That meant spam messages didn't hit the forums and members were taken off moderation once they'd proved they weren't spammers. However, this wouldn't be feasible here because of the volume of messages.

[GlenBarrington]

They're B A A C K!

[issybird]

To answer the issue that's been floated: it's an option to delete all a user's posts when banning them for spam, but it's not necessary or automatic. The reality is that 99% of spammers (I made that up, but it's ballpark) come here to spam and that even if their earliest posts aren't spam, they are essentially empty posts as they establish a presence, so no great loss. On the other hand, if a spammer has started a thread to which members have responded in seriousness, there's no reason to delete the whole thing.

I'm going to close this thread; we know they're getting through the safeguards. The issue is being worked on. Apologies for the continued nuisance. If people want to continue to comment, there's a spam thread in the Feedback forum.