Timeline for Influx of ridiculous number of spam users – what to do?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
24 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 22 at 7:46 | vote | accept | gmvh | ||
| Apr 17, 2021 at 7:33 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @theHigherGeometer: This is supposed to be a temporary fix while we figure out how to solve the real problem. | |
| Apr 17, 2021 at 2:40 | comment | added | David Roberts Mod | @shane.orourke SE has stopped bronze badges being shown altogether, rather than just Autobiographer. Whether this is the right solution is up for debate, I feel. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 20:22 | comment | added | shane.orourke | And now none of the spam autobiographer badges is to be seen under Recent Badges! A magic wand has evidently been put to good use... | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 16:08 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | @AsafKaragila Now there is a feature request about the suggestion mentioned in your most recent comment: FIltering out the Autobiographer badge from “Recent Badges” | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 14:37 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @Martin: SE offered to just filter out the Autobiographer badge from that list, which is also a good solution. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 14:37 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | @JosephO'Rourke (or theHigherGeometer): Making you could post the suggestion made in the comments in a separate post as a feature request? (See also brief exchange with Asaf Karagila in chat.) A possible alternative could be to show only users above some minimal reputation in that list. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 10:43 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @theHigherGeometer: I'd actually miss it, although not in its current form, obviously, full of spambots. But I did already float the idea up. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 10:42 | comment | added | shane.orourke | I agree with @JosephO'Rourke (no relation!) and theHigherGeometer that Recent Badges should no longer appear on our front page. | |
| Apr 16, 2021 at 2:28 | comment | added | David Roberts Mod | As I found out at the question Martin linked, the network-wide site software uses Recent Badges as literal filler if the HNQ list is disabled. I strongly support just turning the it off. There are only a tiny handful of sites without HNQ (and so have recent badges filler), and I doubt anyone would miss the list. | |
| Apr 15, 2021 at 20:18 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @polfosol: On almost all SE websites this list is not visible anymore. | |
| Apr 15, 2021 at 20:10 | comment | added | polfosol | If I understood the discussion correctly, most of the concerns are due to the fact that the spam users show up on "recent badges" page. This was surprising for me because I have been a regular user of the SE network for over five years and I have never seen or noticed such page! Just sayin... | |
| Apr 15, 2021 at 17:49 | comment | added | Joseph O'Rourke | Could we ask that "Recent Badges" no longer be shown on the front page? Every one I see at the moment is spam Autobiographer. | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 20:54 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | @shane.orourke A post on Meta Stack Exchange related to your observation: Which sites show recent badges on the frontpage? | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 19:40 | comment | added | shane.orourke | @Asaf That's interesting history I wasn't aware of - and thanks for pursuing this. | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 17:38 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @shane.orourke: That is because MO traded the Hot Network Questions for Recent Badges many years ago, other sites don't have that on display anymore, which is why it is "less obvious" there. And I can assure you that literally the first thing I did with my diamond powers was look into that and notify some higher-ups of this issue. | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 17:25 | comment | added | shane.orourke | By the way, congratulations Asaf! Hope you're enjoying your new role. | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 17:24 | comment | added | shane.orourke | This problem lately seems to affect MO and four other StackExchange sites (Stack Overflow, Server Fault, Super User, and Ask Ubuntu). What seems to be a particular problem for MO is that these spam users show up on the main page under Recent Badges; I for one don't see Recent Badges on any other SE site. And while I don't lose sleep over it, it is a nuisance, and I dislike the idea of such users getting free advertising on MO. | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 4:00 | comment | added | Martin Sleziak | Saying that it is fully blocked is a bit overstatement. It is true that the links are rendered as plaintext. Google still might find the text contained there. It would be nice if SE implemented some of the suggestions given here: Spam Profiles are getting my goat. Could we have better tools for mods to deal with profile spam? (Hiding profiles of such users or at least preventing them from being indexed.) | |
| Apr 14, 2021 at 3:55 | history | edited | Martin Sleziak | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
a minor typo
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| Apr 13, 2021 at 18:41 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | (Just for completeness, I sent an emails to the MO team a few hours ago on this topic.) | |
| Apr 13, 2021 at 18:40 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | Yes, I understand, it's crazy. This is something that is happening on several websites (you can see the accounts exist on multiple SE sites), it's well above the pay grade of the moderators here, and there is not a lot they can do. Since CMs are paying attention due to the election, they might be quick to respond. In any case, this is nothing to worry about at this point. And I say that as someone who usually worries about every single spammer account (on MSE). | |
| Apr 13, 2021 at 18:36 | comment | added | gmvh | It may be that this spam is not terribly impactful in term of achieving its purpose, but there are currently over a hundred such users being created per hour! | |
| Apr 13, 2021 at 18:27 | history | answered | Asaf KaragilaMod | CC BY-SA 4.0 |