#1 2017-02-27 2:49 pm

Denford99

Banned

Registered: 2017-02-27

Posts: 6

Hello people!

Hello dear,

I am new into this community. I would like to say hello to all. Please accept me guys.

Thanks!

Papa Parrot

Member

From: Mexico

Registered: 2011-08-19

Posts: 1,826

Website

Re: Hello people!

Try browseing the forum a little, and think about what you ask or post,
Is it really necessary ? 
Is the question really relevant to preventing or reporting spam ?
If not , then do not post it.
Can you think and reason ?

Take a look at this thread : Welcome newcomers 

Denford99>>Please accept me guys.

Obviously, since your registration was accepted, you were accepted as a member.

Exactly what more do you want ?

Denford99>> Hello dear,

And personally I do not like being called "dear", by something or someone I do not even know,
I think most others here would feel the same.
If English is not your main language, ok, no problem, in English a more appropriate greeting
would be  " hello forum members" , or just "hello all", so please learn how to use a dictionary, and translater.

---

Everything is for the Birds

And now, Papa Parrot and his kids

lisati

Member

From: Porirua, New Zealand

Registered: 2011-04-14

Posts: 340

Re: Hello people!

And personally I do not like being called "dear", by something or someone I do not even know, I think most others here would feel the same.

I agree, neither do I. Emails I receive that start "Hello dear" end up getting reported as spam almost immediately.

Maikuolan

Member

From: Perth, Western Australia

Registered: 2011-08-09

Posts: 799

Website

Re: Hello people!

Same here. ^.^

Papa Parrot

Member

From: Mexico

Registered: 2011-08-19

Posts: 1,826

Website

Re: Hello people!

Agreed, which is why I figured it was a bot, how ever I don't think just
saying "hello dear", would be sufficient to submit it the the SFS data base as a spammer,..
So we waited until it actually posted something with a URL in it, in order to be able to submit it,..
See this thread : http://www.stopforumspam.com/forum/view … 915#p46915

  On the e-mail side of it, yes indeed , is a very common greeting with spammers,....
I wonder if a forum post with "Hello dear", or similar would be a acceptable reason
to submit as a spammer, and evidence ?

---

Everything is for the Birds

And now, Papa Parrot and his kids

zero-tolerance

Member

Registered: 2013-02-25

Posts: 339

Re: Hello people!

If someone's early posts look suspicious but not strong enough to report, put some of the odd phrases (and their username) through a search engine. If they're spamming you'll probably find them elsewhere.

Alex Kemp

Moderator

From: Nottingham, England

Registered: 2009-12-02

Posts: 2,422

Website

Re: Hello people!

Emails I receive that start "Hello dear" end up getting reported as spam almost immediately.

(since other people read these posts and may accept them on face value)

No URL means no spam & therefore cannot be reported.
(naturally, can be banned/removed by forum admin, but not reported to SFS)

False spam reports == SFS reporting rights removed.

A great many forums require x number of posts for the user to obtain extra rights. In addition, bot operators hope that a new user will slip below attention with x number of posts.

Bots do not realise that the most experienced forum admin & mods in the world visit SFS. Their chances of survival here are as close to zero as it is possible to get. Also, we love them to come here (more grist for the DB mill).

---

Alex Kemp

IP Aggregation (Help) · Easy Firewall Generator (Help)  · Conteg v0.13.14

PaulBuonopane

Member

From: United States

Registered: 2015-08-26

Posts: 46

Re: Hello people!

In this particular case, the user was a spammer--there was a blatant attempt to promote a website at one point.

However, it's worth noting that "Hello dear" and other phrases that may sound awkward in Western countries are actually quite common in some parts of the world.  For example, Indian dialects of English often sound very awkward to speakers of other dialects, but this isn't necessarily due to lack of fluency on their part; English is actually the only ubiquitous official language in India.

The forums for which I work have seen an influx of users from India and China lately, as the industry on which we focus has been growing faster in those countries than in Western countries.  This is representative of many high-tech industries.  With this comes an inevitable cultural clash.  As many spammers have historically been from countries that are now providing legitimate users, our administrators and moderators have long associated these dialects and lack of fluency with spammers; however, more often than not, we now find that they're legitimate users.  To make matters more complicated, many parts of the world share IP addresses heavily, meaning that we can no longer rely on IP addresses to identify spambots or shared accounts in some cases.

As Alex Kamp said, unless there's a blatant attempt to promote something, a post shouldn't be considered spam.  We also include phone numbers, failed attempts at URL insertions, and obvious brand-name/keyword associations, though--for example, when a post consists entirely of a brand name mixed with a long list of positive keywords.

Papa Parrot

Member

From: Mexico

Registered: 2011-08-19

Posts: 1,826

Website

Re: Hello people!

That is why I said this,

Fromhttp://www.stopforumspam.com/forum/view … 925#p46925 me:If English is not your main language, ok, no problem, in English a more appropriate greeting
would be  " hello forum members" , or just "hello all", so please learn how to use a dictionary, and translater.

I wrote this before we knew for sure it was a spammer,...
It is very true language differences, and cultural, combined with the translation process can make a person sound either very odd, or like a bot,  In case the OP really was a person, and wanted to just introduce there selves, etc,..."be accepted to the forum", no need to offend them,
   It was kind of a "poke" to see if we could get a response from it. 
   A real human, probably would respond  maybe with "Oh, I am sorry, I did not realize that." or something, depending,.... also a real human would benefit and learn from that, and maybe start
using a more appropriate greeting. 

myself: I wonder if a forum post with "Hello dear", or similar would be a acceptable reason
to submit as a spammer, and evidence ?

Actually I was kind of kidding here, I do realize just because they say "Hello Dear", that is not enough to actually submit it as spam,...But it is a good "warning sign" to watch out for what they post later,  also to keep a eye on the post,...
  Sometimes  they post, and do not include any spam,...then later they come back and edit the
post, adding spam links,...however I suspect that is more of a human tactic, I don't know if bots
can be programmed to come back X number of days, weeks, or month, edit a old post and dump the spam,...I kind of doubt it.

---

Everything is for the Birds

And now, Papa Parrot and his kids

lisati

Member

From: Porirua, New Zealand

Registered: 2011-04-14

Posts: 340

Re: Hello people!

That is why I said this,

It was kind of a "poke" to see if we could get a response from it. 
   A real human, probably would respond  maybe with "Oh, I am sorry, I did not realize that." or something, depending,.... also a real human would benefit and learn from that, and maybe start using a more appropriate greeting.

Off-topic: I had a poke at an email spammer/scammer once for using "Hello dear." Let's just say that they didn't take kindly to being told that such a greeting wasn't always appropriate.

chrishirst

Member

From: Blackpool UK

Registered: 2011-01-22

Posts: 49

Website

Re: Hello people!

Off-topic: I had a poke at an email spammer/scammer once for using "Hello dear." Let's just say that they didn't take kindly to being told that such a greeting wasn't always appropriate.

Then they are either exhibiting crass stupidity, being painfully arrogant or wilfully ignorant. Anyone writing/speaking in their non-native language should be prepared to have their grammar in that language corrected or challenged from time to time, as it is part of the "learning experience",

I cringe every time I hear or read "According to me ... ..." as an opening phrase for a sentence, yet the perpetrators of that particular grammatical atrocity seem unaware that it reads as "Now look; I KNOW better than all of you, so you had better pay attention to this".

And yes the "Hallo Dear(s)" bugs me to the point where I coded a 'replace filter" for my forum to remove the 'dear(s)' part so only 'Hallo'  appears in the post.

And don't get me started on the use of 'bellow' when they really mean 'below'

---

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, .... But hey! Who cares.

lisati

Member

From: Porirua, New Zealand

Registered: 2011-04-14

Posts: 340

Re: Hello people!

And don't get me started on the use of 'bellow' when they really mean 'below'

Another potential can of worms relating to muddled words and homophones?

Last edited by lisati (2017-03-04 6:19 pm)