Vietnamese forums are a spammers' paradise

[floris v]

I made a little check out of curiosity, and it seems that there's a lot of spam in the community forum. Several posts advertising cameras and lots of posts with many hyperlinks in them that don't seem to be related to OOo stuff. Can somebody take a look there?

[floris v]

Follow-up: user lyquocan has 597 posts, and likely all of them spam. Joined: 16 Jul 2010, 10:50. Apparently ignored by the admins, who haven't posted for months.

[DrewJensen]

well, I've nixed the postings from that one user - but there are others doing the same, just not with such gusto.

This particular forum has never really caught on - and had a spam issue like this once before - in that last instance, a few years ago, it was a good while before I could get the NL admins attention.

At this point I would recommend shutting down the forum - since there is no precedence for this...I have sent email to the two NL admins inquiring, to see if they are available and what they would like to see done - but for myself, this was one of the basic requirements for NL forums to be opened, that there would be native speakers managing the content and seeing that questions where being answered..

I'll get back to this thread as soon as I hear from the admins (or perhaps, hopefully, they will be the ones to respond)

Thanks

//drew

Edit: Copy of email sent to the two NL Admins at the VI forum Hi, Recently I returned to the Admin role for the OpenOffice.org User Services forums. Upon reviewing the different forums, and having a user send a message specifically regarding the VI forum, it was noted that the VI forum is not being managed. One user for instance had posted 527 messages, all spam, and many other posting seem to be spam also. It is my opinion that at this point the forum has failed to catch on and it would be best at this point to shut it down. Please get back to me with your opinion on this as soon as you can...it would be much appreciated. Sincerely, Drew Jensen ps see this posting on the Site Admin board as a reference: viewtopic.php?f=90&t=44333

[acknak]

+1

Thanks for following up.

[floris v]

+1
With so few posts (and some of them still spam) the forum has shown that it isn't viable.

[Bidouille]

At this point I would recommend shutting down the forum

-1
I don't read vietnamese language but are you sure that the forum is only spammed?

Maybe we may restrict the spambot registration with the "ooo" signature check.

[Hagar Delest]

I don't read vietnamese language but are you sure that the forum is only spammed?

If they have not reached a critical mass, it means that this is not the good time yet for a forum.

[floris v]

At this point I would recommend shutting down the forum

-1
I don't read vietnamese language but are you sure that the forum is only spammed?

Maybe we may restrict the spambot registration with the "ooo" signature check.

I did a Google translate of some posts and found that bot translating Vietnamese - Dutch is a lot worse than English - Dutch, but the links were clear enough. There were a few other posts that weren't spam to be sure.

If you have any doubts about spam, check out this one: http://user.services.openoffice.org/vi/ ... f=14&t=897 - apologies for spamming.
Or this: http://user.services.openoffice.org/vi/ ... 94a4#p1091
Again, apologies for spamming.

That signature check didn't work: the spammer had an OOo version signature. And over 500 unanswered posts by one person looks suspicious. If I were asking serious questions in a forum and found that after ten posts in new topics I still hadn't got a single reply, I'd give up. In fact I'd probably give up much sooner. But here we had somebody with lots of links to a commercial website for some company in his posts.

But even if it weren't all spam, 500 posts per year or less is much below the minimum post count to make a forum worthwhile.

[DrewJensen]

Hi,

Well, it is really a long term problem with the VI forum - not a recent development - and should of been addressed 2 years ago.

The site has never generated any real usage numbers, and is not specific to the forum BTW, the MLs have never generated much activity either. For instance the Install board has a total of 1 post and one reply. Why that is I can't say with any certainty, I have a few ideas but they are as much conjecture as anything else. It is not that there is no OO.o activity in Vietnam, there is and LibreOffice support is strong, but to the best of my knowledge most of the activity is tied to one specific company and I suspect most support activity flows through that company or via local support boards..which is all good but doesn't really help with maintaining this site.

Anyway - I would not act without talking it over with the NL guys.

Edit: If I don't get a response from the NL admins via the email sent from the board in another day or two I can try to contact them via the LibO registered email addresses as they are active in 'that other project'...:)

[floris v]

lyquocan is at it again. Is it possible that he's advertising the company that you mentioned?

[floris v]

<noreply@everyday.com.vn> (unregistered)

Postby AutomatedMailbox » Sat Oct 08, 2011 9:14 am
Subject: Phiếu ưu đãi cho Bộ gối hơi hình thú chỉ có 85,000 VND (tiết kiệm 38%)
From: Everyday <noreply@everyday.com.vn>
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2011 15:04:53 +0700
To: =?UTF-8?B?SOG7jSBUw6pu?= <forumadminen@user.services.openoffice.org>
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Về everyday.vn | &copy; 2011 Everyday.vn

Công ty Cổ Phần Dịch Vụ Hàng Ngày, Tầng 6, Tòa nhà Phượng Long, 506 Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Quận 3, Tp.Hồ Chí Minh

Trong trường hợp:

- Bạn thay đổi email, hãy bấm vào đây để cập nhật email mới trên everyday.vn

- Bạn muốn ngừng nhận mail thông báo sản phẩm mới từ Everyday.vn, hãy bấm vào đây

I rest my case.

[RGB]

Exactly the same e-mail arrived today to the Spanish mailbox, and there was a couple of very similar entries on the last days.

[Hagar Delest]

+1. I've removed at least 6 of them in the EN admin mailbox this week.

[DrewJensen]

Well, no word from either of the guys on the vi forum...drat.

I've not banned any of those accounts, as I just didn't like the idea of sending the email notification in English...but that is likely not a good enough reason to keep from doing so - I'll do that there.

So - I'll try reaching those guys another way - and then we talk about how we would retire a forum? There are some valid posts and people to reference them, just not very many...

[floris v]

I suggest that you make it read-only for the time being. Or take it temporarily off-line without actually deleting it (Link to a page saying the site is down due to maintenance). That might be an effective way to force the admins to contact you.

[floris v]

New member, posts more spam.

[DrewJensen]

arrgh - Ok - well, if I haven't heard anything from the NL admins by this evening I'll lock the forum to new updates...in the mean time I'll go deal with the specific post and poster..

[floris v]

Bump

[TerryE]

I've been culling the spam posts and deleting the offending users. As a result of all this, I see that we don't actually have any real active posts left (even with a 1 year filter), so I don't think that the attribution "spammers' paradise" still applies. More of a dead parrot!

[floris v]

The Vietnamese admins, if they ever get back from their extended leave, would reply that it's asleep or that it's pining, yes?

[floris v]

More spam.

[floris v]

http://user.services.openoffice.org/vi/ ... f=14&t=910

[kingfisher]

If that thread is an example of what is going on, the Vietnamese forum should be taken off line or new administrators found.

Has anything been posted about the problem in the Vietnamese forum? I think the members should be given the opportunity to be heard.

[DrewJensen]

yes I would say that there was plenty of notice - or at least a reasonable attempt at it.

I was poked about this again (Why me, good question but a different matter) - and truthfully I think it is just time to take it down - not just off-line but take it down.

However - going with the ASF style of lazy consensus - barring any strong objection on Feb. 2nd I propose to do the following:
Add a global announcement to the site re-directing individuals with a legitimate question to the En forum.
Lock all lists.
Disable any new registrations.

(will also submit this to the Mailing List at the ASF OpenOffice PPMC, as soon as I log out here)

[Hagar Delest]

Hi Drew,

Sorry to have bothered you. Since you're the only one here now to have access to the servers, there is no much choice. But I had in mind to post on the mailing list too. Action needs to be taken now.

[floris v]

Before that happens, shouldn't we get somebody who can read Vietnamese to clear out all remaining spam?

[DrewJensen]

I've removed the spam the last few times - and I'll do so again today - it's not that hard to do with Google translate...

[floris v]

Sure, but you have better things to do than delete spam, right?

Edit: I could sign up there and you could make me a mod for that stuff, I suppose.

[DrewJensen]

If you would like, fine with me - just ping me after you create the account.

Unfortunately it is not just that there is spam on the site, the bigger problem is there just isn't any real usage of the site, it's just sitting there.

[floris v]

True, it'd be better to take it off line.
Registered.