Help me fight Forum Spam

[Locke]

Anyone else finding the spambot's advertisement titles a little amusingly contradictory at times? One moment it's trying to sell us viagra, next it's telling us how viagra causes heart attacks. Recently it's been trying to sell "healthy cigarettes".

Still surprised it hasn't started shilling sex toys yet though. After going through loans, savings, credit, gambling, prescription drugs, and cigs I'm sure the "Mr. Big Dick Cream" porn spam links will be showing up soon.

Earlier, it switched briefly from cigarettes to stop smoking aids and products to deal with the smoke odor. Probably, all the products interconnect in some convoluted way so that once you've bought a couple, the rest eventually follow in sequence.

It tried to sell "Kamasutra Contoured Condoms" ("super thin," cheap, and made in Mexico, no less) in its very first post, along with a number of age-related products (gabapentin, anti-wrinkle cream, menopause gum) for reasons I'm not going to guess at. I replied to the thread with some snark, which seems to have set it off.

I have to wonder why it's programmed with nonsense rather than coherent advertising, though, and those numbers (countless other spambots seem to use the same format). Obviously it's optimized to get search hits in some way, but I'm assuming there's also a monetary goal here.

I'm impressed that anyone knows Dragavan's real name.

Drag linked to several personal sites when he was discussing one of his tabletop games. To Endmaster, that's like begging to be stalked and murdered (notice how we haven't heard from him lately?). Additionally, his profile links to the other sites anyway, and a casual Google of his uncommon username turns up whatever he left out.

Katie straight up posted a visitor message asking "Where are you?" and he probably answered. I'm guessing End just printed out the address after that and showed up at his place.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Of course; that explains everything!

I've clicked on those links before, myself, but I didn't know Dragavan ever used his actual name on any of those sites.

[Usoki]

Yeah, DEP sent out an e-mail once that ended up having his name on it- and I wanna say that Sev's name is Justin for some reason... but beyond that, nothing else jumps out at me.

Ryan, you're actually not far off... well, okay, that's not totally true... but I definitely don't have a 'hip', 'edgy' name. Go with a little less sophistication, and a little more uncommonly unique. Celebrities included, I can only think of about ten people with my name.

I'd say my ability to keep secrets is a combination of being shy, keeping to myself, and not having any real-life friends follow me to the site. Being easily mistaken for a middle-aged androgynous japanese midget in my early days probably helped.

Speaking of past members who I've forgotten about... LeBlanc.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Well you're right about about Sev's name because I finally remembered -- it's on the bottom of every page on the main site.

I'll keep you updated if I ever come up with another idea for your name.

(Thought for sure it was William, though!)

[NEON725]

Hello everyone! I've been on the forums before, but haven't logged in in years. Sorry to see that spambots have just about... that is... This is the only decent thread to post in. Honestly, the administration here has better things to do than inform me of virus alerts...

I was going to recruit some writers for a game book project of mine, but the point seems mute now. I brought some candles.

[Crunchyfrog]

Newbies subforum has broken the 100 threads mark...

[mizal]

I find it hilarious that since the arrival of the spambot this thread alone has shown more activity than the entire forum in the last month.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Hello everyone! I've been on the forums before, but haven't logged in in years. Sorry to see that spambots have just about... that is... This is the only decent thread to post in. Honestly, the administration here has better things to do than inform me of virus alerts...

I was going to recruit some writers for a game book project of mine, but the point seems mute now. I brought some candles.

People like Neon is what makes Infinite-Story so good; this site's like a twist ending... that never ends. Anyway, I don't think I ever met you, but welcome back.

Even during our most productive periods it's hard to recruit members for any kind of organized story (depending on how much you have done, some of us might be willing to contribute, though). For the most part, our community is now just centered around trying to earn bragging rights in the annual writing contest.

[Locke]

Ryan, you're actually not far off... well, okay, that's not totally true... but I definitely don't have a 'hip', 'edgy' name. Go with a little less sophistication, and a little more uncommonly unique. Celebrities included, I can only think of about ten people with my name.

Without trying to e-stalk you or anything, I came up with a decent list of possibilities. It's not really fair to throw the whole thing at you and expect an answer, so here's a shortlist of five, plus a wildcard.

Vance, Kent, Uriah, Devon, Julian *Duane

Oh, and it isn't Rumpelstiltskin, is it?

Usoki's been about the only current long standing active forum member who has managed to keep his real name secret and not have anyone else let it slip. But he posted his pic on Halloween and I know he lives in Kansas so he's done for anyway. (I actually don't know his hometown so it'll still take awhile. Lol)

End, I'm disappointed. Usoki posted that awhile back (his college, at least), I think when one of the Kansas teams won a big game. Or maybe in the "what am I going to do with my life" thread.

[End Master]

Well that explains why I missed it, I don't pay much attention to any sports related talk around here.

[End Master]

In other news I finally completed a major story branch for the contest. The entire story still isn't finished of course, but now I feel like it's more than a respectable size to post now and has several choices and endings even within that one major branch.

I'll try to post it as soon as I can.

[NEON725]

Well, I'm kinda paranoid about pasting text because of the bot, but I have a pitch written up in a text file somewhere if anyone's interested. Otherwise, I won't bother. What's this writing contest?

[Ryan_DuBois]

Cat is back on the main site. I just wrote her, so I think we'll know her plans for entering or not entering pretty soon.

Neon: This one ends on the 16th of January, but basically we hold it (roughly) once a year. The winner of every contest gets to choose the theme for next year (for example, End won last year and picked "Urban Fantasy", so now we're all writing about cities with mythological creatures running around in them and such; or something like that). Also, the winner gets to tweak the criteria for entering a little.

Anyone who wants to take the time to read the stories can rate them and all contestants are required to rate their opponents' stories.

I think that about sums it up. Anyway, I'd love to help out with your project, but I'm way to busy as of late. I think this contest will mark the end of my writing, at least until summer.

[EDIT]

Cat's not going to enter this one; her computer was overrun with viruses for a while, but it's working again. Blah. Don't know why I'm telling you this, since Cat2000 probably will herself.



Anyway, welcome back, Cat!

Mizal was right -- we need more bots if they breath this kind of life back into the site!

[End Master]

It'll probably take awhile for the story to properly pop up on the main reading list, but Innkeeper has now been posted and SHAME has gloriously been avoided!

[mizal]

It'll probably take awhile for the story to properly pop up on the main reading list, but Innkeeper has now been posted and SHAME has gloriously been avoided!

Awesome, I remember the idea for that one sounding really interesting when I first read about it, and I usually end up enjoying all of your stuff, so looking forward to checking it out when I get home.

Also, I never realized about your creepy stalking hobby until it was brought up here...End, is there anything you want to tell us about why Severenz hasn't been around in so long? We won't tell the police, we promise.