Re: sure are a lot of spammers

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K9s wrote: Sun Mar 17, 2019 6:54 pm Next summer, I assume we will be looking at a lot of them. Any way to strengthen the forum's access for a few months until after the 2020 election?
i'm guessing you're talking about the run-up to the election. that would be trolls, which are distinct from spammers in that spammers want to sell a physical product. trolls want to sell an idea and will probably be subtler and harder to detect with certainty.

if it was up to me, i would REQUIRE an intro post in the intro subforum. announce it at the door in big flashing letters. none of this daisy-chaining off of someone else's. build it into the software, reject membership attempts until they post something in an intro thread. make new members commit to something, anything, from the very beginning. and if they want to play clown games (as opposed to Klown games) we're here to point and laugh at them.

i know my view is not very stereotypically liberal. i'm one of those illiberal centrists who, even though i have significant differences of opinion, believes that LGC has an important contribution to make to political discourse and the perceived role of guns in a free society, and should be protected.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: sure are a lot of spammers

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K9s wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2019 5:15 pm I cannot wait for October 2020. I expect some fireworks.
you're a better man than i, gunga din. i understand these things take time, but i was hoping we'd be well into impeachment proceedings by now. :cry:
i expect to carry on like normal, point them out when i see them, let admin and mods do the wetwork.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: sure are a lot of spammers

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lurker wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2019 7:49 pm
K9s wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2019 5:15 pm I cannot wait for October 2020. I expect some fireworks.
you're a better man than i, gunga din. i understand these things take time, but i was hoping we'd be well into impeachment proceedings by now. :cry:
i expect to carry on like normal, point them out when i see them, let admin and mods do the wetwork.
Can anonymous proxies be blocked? Just curious.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: sure are a lot of spammers

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i used to live in st petersburg.
florida. across tampa bay from tampa. does that count?

i suppose there would have to be a way to detect them.

it's funny, even during the cold war, i could identify with russians because i thought two of my grandparents were russian. then i found out they were ukrainian, came from kiev. part of the russian empire, then the soviet union. i've read a fair amount of russian literature, tolstoy, dostoyevsky, lermontov, solzenytsin... now with the russian invasion of ukraine, i have no use for anything russian, including moisin-nagants, ak##s and their ammo. i understand that from their geopolitical POV it's important to have a warm-water port, but i don't have to like it, either. and now our great leader is standing by and watching venezuela while james monroe spins in his grave. russia may not be communist anymore but they're still very much totalitarian. i wish our conservative brethren understood that.

sorry, got off on a rant. what was the question?
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: sure are a lot of spammers

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hondo2K0 wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 3:38 am Maybe she is a medical imaging technician ? You know x-ray + armor.
yes, maybe. i took it as something about wearing body armor in airport screening lines. possibly undetectable by xray body armor.
i puzzle over some of these. some of them, on the face of it, look maybe legit. it's that maybe that catches my eye.
i don't have a fixed set of criteria to determine what i think is a spammer, but there are things that make me suspicious. no one or two of these are definitive, but they each raise a red flag:

user uses what looks like an actual name. really, who does this in this day and age? and yet, i think this is fairly normal in places like twitter, where notions like privacy are apparently considered archaic and quaint. may have to revise this at some point.
english as a second language. this is not just a matter of poor spelling or grammar. there are speech patterns embedded deep in our language usage that we don't even notice because of what language we learned to speak as children. whether we were raised in brooklyn, boston, bakersfield or bangladesh, our origins show. nothing against bangladesh, but why are you here?
apparent purpose: some of them are blatant. they're here to sell something. they may try to soft-pedal it, like the "sponsored content" we see on news feeds. it's ads, bought and paid for, and expected to generate revenue. if it's not firearm- or rights-related, why is it here? even then, sometimes a tactical flashight is just a flashlight.
the converse: it's unclear why they came. they're evasive, dance around it, never quite come out and say why they're here. these actually worry me the most. what do they want?
there are more. many more, little, subtle things, things that make me go :hmmm: if there's enough of them. i point them out.

and then there are trolls, completely different thing. they're here to sell an idea. usually a petty, mean-spirited idea.

as i've mentioned before, i'm just the guard dog. if i hear someone nosing around i give the alarm. i try hard not to give too many false positives. i neither have nor want the authority to do anything about them, that's someone elses' call. if admin or the mods ask me to stop, i will.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: sure are a lot of spammers

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K9s wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:20 pm Our own leaders are very much totalitarian. I hope people are figuring that out and it isn't too late for us.
Hey now. Just because Inquisitor rules with an iron fist.......
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
- Maya Angelou

Image

Re: sure are a lot of spammers

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shinzen wrote: Sun Mar 31, 2019 9:39 am
K9s wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2019 10:20 pm Our own leaders are very much totalitarian. I hope people are figuring that out and it isn't too late for us.
Hey now. Just because Inquisitor rules with an iron fist.......
It is a velvet glove. Much more benign. :)
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Re: sure are a lot of spammers

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new member FailsonLifecoach. not necessarily a spammer, no post. yeah, ok, most likely a failed spam attempt. which brings me to why i found this one interesting.
1: claims to be a "Lifecoach". what is this lifecoach thing, and how do i get a gig giving people with too much money advice on how to spend their time?
2: a lifecoach with the word "Fails"in the name. really, isn't this the height of irony?

i mean, my life hasn't exactly been exemplary so far, and i'm unlikely to redeem myself anytime soon, but the nerve of some people.
i get it, do as i say not as i do, looks pretty easy, but there are appearances to be kept up, and shhh!, what's that candy bar peeking out of my bag? "that's not candy, that's an energy bar"!

sometimes i get on a roll and i just can't stop until i get it all out. please accept my apologies. maybe i need a lifecoach.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

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