Spammers are using listener accounts now
I'm not sure how it's happening...am I mistaken? I thought listener accounts have to pass the training in order to post things. If that's not the case, that would be something to address. If it is, then...I'm amazed that they would have that much endurance. Or maybe they cheated the system, idk.
Anyway they look like real listener accounts but they post the same URL spam. Usually the sports looking ones in brackets.
Yes, and they have profile pictures, too. Maybe someone has written a script that does the listener training—it would not be difficult. Or maybe the spammers just pay humans to do it.
I don't normally see much of the spam at 7 Cups, because I wrote a personal spam blocker months ago. But I had programmed it to trust listeners. Oops! Earlier today it took me maybe five minutes to fix that.
@Phthalo
@RarelyCharlie Wait, is it that easy to do? Why don't they implement that into the site?
Well, it is and it isn't.
It's easy like, say, eating a cookie is easy.
But for someone with an eating disorder, maybe eating a cookie feels like being out of control.
For someone with OCD, maybe all the rituals before and after eating the cookie make the whole thing a nightmare.
For someone with paranoia, maybe trusting that the cookie isn't poisoned is next to impossible.
For someone with depression, maybe eating the cookie would just take too much energy.
For someone manic, maybe there are many more important things to do than eating a cookie.
For 7 Cups, I think blocking spam may perhaps be something similar. Writing the PHP and JavaScript is certainly very easy, but overcoming the organizational issues and making it happen is evidently another matter.
@Phthalo
@RarelyCharlie I don't think they ever tried though, the only thing they tried was the captcha...
@RarelyCharlie 
I would love to see you on the admin team, but I would miss your comments if you had to self-censor more than you do currently.
