Do You Delete Spammers

[JamesBrown]

(I do, but xF does not make this easy ( Delete should be an option within the spam cleaner) maybe xF thinks we want to, delete their posts, drop them a nice email and ban them but keep them on the books to make the forums look more popular.

Do you keep them, why would xF think we'd want to keep them as members?

 

[Mr Lucky]

(I do, but xF does not make this easy ( Delete should be an option within the spam cleaner) maybe xF thinks we want to, delete their posts, drop them a nice email and ban them but keep them on the books to make the forums look more popular.

Do you keep them, why would xF think we'd want to keep them as members?

I suppose the theory is if they are deleted they can rejoin (with same email). However I always presume spammers have an inifinite collection of email addresses.

 

[Paul B]

keep them on the books to make the forums look more popular

Banned members are not counted for the front end stats.

 

[StarArmy]

Yes, I delete them. I don't like to see the usernames in my ACP or on the "newest user is X" on the sidebar.

 

[rainmotorsports]

I suppose the theory is if they are deleted they can rejoin (with same email). However I always presume spammers have an inifinite collection of email addresses.

Usernames are kind of more finite than email addresses. If you delete the users they will sign back up with the same credentials at some point in time. Which is part of the reason SFS is effective when utilized properly (such as with the TPU add on).

 

[Amaury]

Yes. And if we could rebuild user IDs, it would be even more awesome, but giving spammers da boot is fun enough on its own.

 

[JamesBrown]

Usernames are kind of more finite than email addresses.

You think so?

 

[AndyB]

(I do, but xF does not make this easy ( Delete should be an option within the spam cleaner) maybe xF thinks we want to, delete their posts, drop them a nice email and ban them but keep them on the books to make the forums look more popular.

Do you keep them, why would xF think we'd want to keep them as members?

I manually delete the thread or post and then delete the account. I don't use the spam cleaner.

 

[CarpCharacin]

I use the spam cleaner and then I delete them. That way, their info is automatically submitted to StopForumSpam.

 

[Mouth]

Every 4-6 weeks or so, or when I remember and or feel bothered, I use ACP to display banned accounts and then delete them. Usually only a few each time.

 

[Robru]

I remove two times a year spammers. There are never more than 5

 

[Nebulon Ranger]

Generally, yes. Mostly out of habit from when my forum was on MyBB; I'd ban them all to a special group with its own admin CP view, Select All, then nuke them.

 

[tenants]

Usernames are kind of more finite than email addresses. If you delete the users they will sign back up with the same credentials at some point in time. Which is part of the reason SFS is effective when utilized properly (such as with the TPU add on).

both usernames and email addresses are fairly infinite (well, larger than you could imagine)
The available IP addresses for one botter can be in their thousands (which they then dump after a few weeks and buy fresh ones ... if they have completed their round of automation)
for usernames, they use concatenation of lists, which sometimes they spin (rather like article spinning) for variations

If you watch this, at time 2.27 you'll see the ip addresses available to this xrumer 16 botter
You'll also see the profile names in a file at time 2:15 (and you can see they have been spun + concatenated for variations)

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