Well, it depends on the forum...

A post like that would stand out like a sore thumb on a dating forum for example, or a sports forum etc..

The REEEALLY sneaky bots will grab part of a post from another part of the SAME forum, and maybe even copy part of a post from the SAME THREAD !

I actually saw that happen a couple of weeks ago on another site, the only giveaway was the obvious & off topic spam link .

Come to think of it.... I saw it happen on THIS forum,
some months ago, slipped right past me too,
or I would have reported it .

Maybe WE will, but not every admin or moderator isn't as aware as we are .

I just now saw TWO spammers in a forum I go to, and they were posting off topic posts all over the board, about 5 or 6 posts each, and they used hidden links in the text that you wouldn't notice unless you moved your mouse pointer over them .

and the mods & admin totally missed them,
one spammer signed up at the forum over a month ago !
I had to send the admin a PM about it, since there is no "report abuse" links on the posts, (SMF v2.0 forum).

The one I quoted was totally relevant to the forum/thread ... they had simply stitched a few previous posts together.

At least the spate of signatures in the same colour as the forum post background, therefore invisible, have stopped... they were nasty.

Current trends seem to be registering, posting a few plausible posts with no obvious signature but if you look carefully theres a fullstop  .... they come back at a later date and edit their signature to a spammy one, thus all previous posts now have the spammy link.

I do a sig search in admin cp every morning to cover a certain time period of new registrations, entering a fullstop in sig search field.

We're increasingly getting spammers mainly from the UK and USA so no problem with posting something.  But a large board I read has almost absent admin and many of their 'new members' are obviously cutting and pasting with no understanding.  One 'member's' first post last week said 'Thank you for all the lovely birthday wishes and the cake'.

[off topic]

I would go ahead and go to 1.1.11 now as there has been some serious drama at the developer part of that program last I heard. Whatever their time line was is blown out of the water. Then again I have not checked for a while now on the main site or forums but 3 months ago or more my impression was they were not sure 2.0 was ever going to be out of beta. The .9 had some holes in it as did .10 that were fixed in .11.

[/off topic]

Last edited by Fire God (2010-07-30 9:01 am)

Saw one of those this morning.  Should have flagged the user to watch, but didn't   1st post was a decent on topic response, but a bit unusual for a 1st post, IP address resolved to the Philippines.  No hidden links (checked by hitting quote), nothing in the sig.

Yeah they tend to come back when you don't suspect them anymore and sometimes still don't post but just change their profile and add a signature link to a spam site or to another forum where they spammed on.

I had one post a joke before. No links .. just a joke. Couldn't figure out what its intent was .. til it came back later ..