Report bugs for Out of Games.
This isn't really a site bug, but figured it was easier to post here than go through and report on 20 or so posts. But this user has been making a ton of spam posts, just FYI. I'm sure you noticed, but wanted to say something just in case.
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Thanks for the report :)
If you report a single one of their posts, it'll put an icon on all staff member's screens which will alert us to the problem.
Stupid asshat spammers. I wish they'd get the message and figure out their posts don't last very long here so they gain 0 traction by posting here. There's another site though that is purely focused on Hearthstone that doesn't seem to delete spam comments though.
Since I visit OoC quite often every day, I have seen a fair share of these spam posts as well. They usually appear in bulk and of course have nothing to do with Hearthstone. Sometimes they are a bit more thoroughly setup and it is a single post in an older thread and tend to be controversial, but I always notice that the user has posted very little on OoC and is merely a newly created spoof account. I even reported a few of these spam posts in the past. Also, when I click on the arrow icon to see the latest forum post and it does not show but navigates to the first page instead I instantly realize it was most likely purged by one of the moderators.
All this being said, I cannot help but wonder if these spam posts are completely random or somehow targeted because it seems to happen very regularly. Does someone have a personal vendetta or any other bad motive against this wonderful community site? I certainly hope not, but since you hinted at the other HS site it only further fuels my train of thought that something more is going on here.
I would totally understand if you do not want to air dirty laundry over here by the way.
Quote From NebuchadnezzarHS All this being said, I cannot help but wonder if these spam posts are completely random or somehow targeted because it seems to happen very regularly. Does someone have a personal vendetta or any other bad motive against this wonderful community site? I certainly hope not, but since you hinted at the other HS site it only further fuels my train of thought that something more is going on here.
Spam is just a thing you get to deal with on the internet, and it's a bit of a "you've made it" thing.
Spammers can't find your website if you aren't listed anywhere. We're being targeted because we're considered worth targeting. If we don't nuke their links, their job has been accomplished and will help them boost their client's traffic which means they can earn more $$$.
Spam very much is a "throw shit everywhere and it'll stick somewhere" type of game. A lot of it is automated by bots so once you end up on a spammer's list, there's not much you can do about it.
Unfortunately, IP blocks don't work very well anymore - everyone uses these super cheap VPN services and the "good" spammers will rotate their IP address for every single post they make. Although I won't publicly talk about what we do to prevent spam, I can say that we've got some new tech in recently that has made it harder for them to do their "job". I also know for a fact that the people spamming on Out of Cards are doing so manually, so I'm glad to see we're worth their time.
All our newish spammer friends are from mainland China right now. I don't know who upset that Winnie the Pooh lookin' guy, but all I'm saying is they've got a Winnie the Pooh lookin' guy in charge of their country. That photo of Winnie the Pooh beside Barack Obama - good times.
Overall though, we're definitely pretty quick at dealing with spam posts and looking at our statistics compared to last year, we're getting around a tenth of what we used to get, and from that tenth even less of it actually ends up bypassing any of our anti-spam stuff. Overall I'm quite happy where things are at, even if it isn't perfect.
Thanks for the insight, Fluxflashor! Indeed, in that perspective I also think it is a testament/achievement that OoC is considered worth targeting by those pesky spammers.
The fact that I do notice the spam posts a bit more than others just proofs I am a (too) frequent visitor 😅
And let's be honest here, besides Reddit we all know there are really only two sites worth visiting regarding daily Hearthstone news/content. OoC being the far better one of course. Kudos!
This level of spam is unfortunately pretty common. I rarely see spam comments though and if these are pretty recent ones, which is a testament to the very high level of supervision the team obviously puts into this. Thanks for that.
First of all you all are doing a great job to keep this forum spam free. One thing I'd like to know (or get changed if not already) is that spammers in old threads move them to the recent threads and the threads stay there even after deletion. So there is something like "Last Post 1 year and 3 months ago" showing up in the recent threads.
Quote From aposteljoe First of all you all are doing a great job to keep this forum spam free. One thing I'd like to know (or get changed if not already) is that spammers in old threads move them to the recent threads and the threads stay there even after deletion. So there is something like "Last Post 1 year and 3 months ago" showing up in the recent threads.
Yeah, that's something we still need to figure out on how to handle. It ends up being the way we deal with caching that information. Our forums aren't exactly the best piece of software that I've ever written. Hopefully we end up with some time to give them a face lift in the future to get rid of oddities like this.
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