I've found an interesting new spamming trick.

It consist on non creating a new thread but opening a really really old one an posting there, so it will be placed on top.

You may say (as I first did) "Well, What's the problem about that?". The answer requires some explanation:

When you log in in to the (let's call it) "moderator's area" you found a quite simple menu showing links to the four forum rooms. Inside each one you see a list of the posts ordered by threads (not by single post) the newest on top. So, if you want to check a thread from 3 months ago you have to press the "older threads" buttom about 20 or 30 times.

About an hour ago there have been posted 2 spam posts on a thread from October 2004, this should have meaned keeping pressing the button for about a week :-)

But no, as I'm a clever boy :-) I've found a way to solve that by looking at the address bar and I've found a number that in the current posts from the bugs room is about 8000 and goes decreasing when you keep pressing the back button, so I've made a try editing the address bar numbers and after several tries I've gone to find the correct thread (which was about the number 5900) and killed the spam.

When you kill the posts the thread will remain on top for about 20 minutes or so until it automatically normalize and takes its correct place on the queu, so you may find very old threads which says that have a new post from today, and when you open it you find that the newest post is asking for MS-Dos v6'22 support. This means that it was spam and that the spam was removed, and the thread should go back automatically to it's place in a while.

This thing has made me think about how far could I go back in time, and I have gone all the way to the very first post, like in a time machine. So I can't resist to post here links to the very first posts of K-Meleon forums. Enjoy!

GENERAL:

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=35881&t=01

DEVELOPMENT:

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=2&i=4689&t=01

BUGS:

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=3&i=5938&t=01

IMPROVEMENTS REQUEST:

http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=4&i=6453&t=01


Note: Modifying the 01 number which is the last thing written on any link you can go up and down, you may even find you first post on K-Meleon Forums!

Enaitz,

I don't pretend to understand how you have managed to figure out how to kill spam on the primitive Sourceforge K-meleon Forum. But I have to say your solution sounds really ingenious. As I've said before, I'm just a writer and editor, albeit one who has worked in computer and internet magazines in another lifetime. I was always considered to be the general interest guy, the least technical in the group.

What you've come up with here can (I hope) avert having to go for registration. So my hat is off to you. Let's hope we can continue to kill off this spam from whatever the source and as we used to say in the computer industry: "Attaboy."

<VBG>

N

Enaitz,

and after several tries I've gone to find the correct thread

Sorry if what follows is not needed or doesn't apply to the "moderator's area" but "several tries" reads like you are guessing.
I appreciate your helping but don't want you to spend any more time than necessary deleting spam. :-)

If you open the page with the spam and hover over the "Reply To This Message" link in the spam, the spam's URL, with an anchor, should be in the task bar.

For example, your first post in this thread is hover, right-click, Copy Link URL, and Paste
kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=36017&t=36017#REPLY

So your first post's URL is
kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=36017&t=36017

Christophe's "Welcome" post is
kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1&t=01


More tricks:

To specify thread view add "&v=t"
kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1&t=01&v=t

To specify flat view add "&v=f"
kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1&t=01&v=f

To index the page to the post
kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1&t=01#reply_1

Or
kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1&t=01&v=t#reply_1

Or
kmeleon.sourceforge.net/forum/read.php?f=1&i=1&t=01&v=f#reply_1

HTH

Wow!

Thanks man!

Can you believe I didn't stop to think about it? Now that you point me there I see it was the evident solution.

I was doing it by placing a number and going decreasing or increasing in blocks of 500 posts. Now I can go directly.

Thanks again (but now I feel a bit more stupid :-)

PS. Now the bad news:

It seems I was wrong when I expected that the prehistoric threads placed on top after receiving the spam would go to it's correct place after deleting the spam. They're still there on top saying they have a recent post, but when you open it there's no recent post ('cause was deleted spam). If anybody knows a way to take the old threads back to the cellar it would be much apreciated.

Yes, I noticed that. It confused the heck out of me. I thought the forums were just being buggy. I guess, in a way, they are. It may just be a small bug in the Phorum software which may still need to be updated.

Brian

Is to update it a thing that can be done by the low profile users (as updating an anti-virus)? Or should we call MacGyver to do that?

thx HTH