Link and Account Removal

[intric8]

This morning I spent over two hours removing over 60 accounts that were created purely to promote spam. These accounts have become very clever in hiding their garbage. Sometimes they'll use the QUOTE Reply function and sneak URLs into that generally ignored block of text. Sometimes they'll embed URLs around a single empty space. They don't care if you see or ever click on the link; it's all about page rank and gaming SEO. It's insanely stupid.

And, a lot of accounts were created simply to insert their spam URLs into their profile pages.

A lot of these accounts aimed at Poland, Russia - even China. Stupid stuff like gaming apps, banks, dating apps - all kinds of useless trash.

Anyway, after removing all of that (and I'm sure I've missed a few as they went back years) I decided to remove links from user profiles. I realize I'm kind of punishing the good guys, but I really value my time and don't want to be doing more cleanings like I did today. And this should at least minimize future damage.

[McTrinsic]

Thanks for all the effort you put I to this site!!

[finrock]

Thanks for all the effort you put I to this site!!

Agreed. Thank you, Eric!

[intric8]

By the way, if you subscribe to certain topics and get an email alert of a new post yet it says it doesn't exist when you get here, it's because I already deleted the spammer and their posts. Apologies if folks have been getting email alerts that point to dead ends.

[DiscreetFX]

Zap those spammers! This was a big problem on Amiga.org sometimes too.