Return of the Mighty BotSlayer

[Aeson]

For those who's posts are hardly distinguishable from spam bots, it's time to up your game ... I've added Buster's Uncle as a global moderator. He's been very helpful reporting spambots, now the rest of us can go back to being lazy again

(Just kidding ... we were always lazy, so no need to "go back"!)

[ZEE]

good joB, BU

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Aw **** - I was going to keep this on the QT...

[ColdWizard]

So, BU. Are you going to clean out the bot-pit known as Other Games?

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I never promised anything but to not touch people or talk about Fight Club. -Also to slay bots; I really hate 'em and like slaying them.

I really only intended to take care of anything in AC or obvious stuff showing in the root directory. But hey, I live to serve and you asked nice, so I'll go in there and try to at least clean out the first page. (I hope that mostly means obvious threads.)

-In the morning. It's 1am here, and my eyes feel all crinkly.

[ColdWizard]

Well, it wasn't a request per se. Just a BotSlayer and a nest of bots was a natural connection for me to make. OG probably needs a new mod, since the forum indicates that the current one hasn't been active in nearly 2 years.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I just took out a topped spam thread - I don't see anything obvious on the first page.

[ColdWizard]

Thanks for looking, since I seem to be out of actual thanks.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

You know, you seem to be a mature poster and concerned about the welfare of Other Games - why not volunteer to moderate? I bet Aeson would take you up on it. Most of what a good mod does is janitor work, like I volunteered to do - and you can kick the people-moderating decisions upstairs. I think you'ld find that less people moderation is mostly better moderation, anyway.

It's going to take a lot of people doing their bit to revive on-topic. This may or may not be a good way for you to pitch in, but I urge you to think of something.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

Okay, on looking in OG again, I just spotted and took out another obvious one. Activity levels are such that I can catch a lot just spiking obvious stuff I see topped in the root directory, but every subfolder really needs someone with deletion/ban powers reading every post and hammering the gibberish. I'm not going to do that; I'm running AC2 single-handed these days and don't have time.

Every member can help, of course, by diligently hitting that report button and typing "spam".

[ColdWizard]

I stopped reporting things in OG after nothing seemed to be done. I've never been a mod at a real site before. Some dying board composed of Polyites and lol Eventis LOL. Responsibility conflicts with my shiftless nature.

As for mature poster, I'm in the Herman Edwards "Don't Hit Send" line of thinking. Which I suppose can make me look somewhat mature. Some of the stuff in the autosave though...

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I hear that. You should SEE some of the crap I decline to say. It actually could be worse.

And you know, not wanting to be a mod is one of the best qualifications for being a mod, provided you'll actually do the work if you give in.

And I've not had anything I reported, since sometime about a year ago when I started doing it, fail to go away in a day, although I reported one or two twice after another one in the same forum had been spiked.

Nobody's reported any posts since Aeson empowered me, BTW, unless I'm not getting those notifications...

[ColdWizard]

I'm sure I'd manage the work for a while, not so sure I'd be able to keep up with it for a lengthy period of time.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I don't think it's much work (the reading and spam-spiking) in any one on-topic forum. If you're gonna be browsing regularly anyway, it's no big deal. I should think a reliable Pool Manager is up to the challenge.

I got another one, in Civ I&II, just a little while ago, five minutes after posting while it still lingered. I love slaying &^%$#@! bots.

Funny - I've spotted a few bots -the spam-stench is all over them- who I haven't touched, because they have no sigs and haven't actually done anything yet. It's important to be sure it's a spammer and not just a strange foreign guy with poor English.

[Aeson]

Yah, I often don't even ban them because that takes a little extra time. Most of the spam comes from new accounts that never will be used again. I'm looking at options for sending brand new poster's posts to a moderation queue*, as well as sending posts with certain keywords to moderation and/or connecting the forum to Akismet. (Akismet is what I use on all my Wordpress sites, and it catches 90%+ of the spam.)

*the problem is the user groups are such a mess right now, I've cleaned some of them up, but still a lot of work to do.