New Spam

  • 20 January 2018
  • 55 replies
  • 1803 views

Userlevel 6
Badge +8
I suspect these aren't legitimate. ;)

Links removed by Moderator.
and more...

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

55 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +20
All of the spam posts have some form of +91 (India) phone number in the title. A good start would be create a regexp filter that caught variants of this, and flagged those posts/users for moderation.
Userlevel 7
Badge +22
All of the spam posts have some form of +91 (India) phone number in the title. A good start would be create a regexp filter that caught variants of this, and flagged those posts/users for moderation.

There are so many things Insided could be doing that they aren't. It's almost as if the people working for insided have no idea how to use the tools they presumably have available to them.
I have been reprimanded by Sonos for, I quote:
calling the community staff "EU based janitors" isn't cool.... please refrain from slinging around what could be considered an insult?
Unquote
I do not believe I have done that anywhere in this thread; what I have said is that Insided incompetency is having Sonos Staff do janitor level work, there is a subtle difference here from calling staff janitors. But in case any sensibilities have been offended by my words, this is an apology.

Do I need to point out the consequence of having to do this work is that response times to threads here shoot up and have remained high for weeks now with many threads going unanswered or ignored. With the question posed in my thread on the related subject of moderation etiquette also being ignored by Sonos till now.

I am now debating with myself if it is time to stop being a contributor to the site. Easy enough now to just dip in for personal support when needed in addition to creating incidents that can be tracked via email.
Here's a thought as well: there is no reason why real world janitors cannot be Sonos customers. And even if they are not, be quite entitled to be offended by the reprimand.
Kumar. I am absolutely appalled that you should have had your wrist slapped for this. I got your meaning, and it would never have occurred to me to interpret your words as insulting, even if being a janitor were something to be ashamed of, which it isn't. You were using the term metaphorically to describe the cleaning up of spam on the site.

What I would like to know is, when did Sonos last contact you specifically to say thank you for the enormous contribution you have made to helping people on the forum over many years?
Userlevel 5
Badge +11
On the face of it, Kumar, it seems like a poor decision there by the moderators. I have been a moderator and I have been involved in poor decisions before. It is sometimes easy to get lost in the turmoil of frustration when the forums are being high maintenance as they seem to be with the spammers at the moment. Hopefully it can be put right and hopefully you stick around - yours are some of the few posts I tend to enjoy reading.

Having said that - these forums seem to suffer far more from spam than other forums i am on. Whether this is due to the size of Sonos or the software that the forums use I have no idea but I do hope that someone has a solution.
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
And yet the spam continues to mount 😞

Stick with us Kumar, take a break if you need but do continue to contribute, you make a difference.
Userlevel 7
Badge +21
1st Page Active topics in 25 posts there are 3 real non spam one, and one of those is a complaint about the spam. 😞
Badge +1
I reported the spam to the Sonos twitter account, said it would get reported to the forum admins. I guess they are out enjoying their weekends.
when did Sonos last contact you specifically to say thank you
Never. Not there ever was an expectation on these lines.
when did Sonos last contact you specifically to say thank you
Never. Not there ever was an expectation on these lines.
No I agree that there is no expectation, I just think it is rather a shame that the one post on which you get direct comment is the one Sonos (mistakenly) feels needs a reprimand, not any of the several thousand posts helping other users.
C'est la vie.
Compared to the insults thrown at Sonos staff in the 8.0 and CR100 threads, this is the post that finally raises their ire? Boggling.
I manage several forums for clients. I see the level of spam activity, and rarely does it make it to the general population like it does here. VBulletin, phpBB, and even a couple of very old UltimateBBs that aren’t even supported anymore are catching 99.9% of spam thrown at it... Whatever Sonos management in charge of overseeing this board needs to stop falling for whatever line insided is feeding them. This is all an easy fix and implemented even easier.
Seeing that much of it originates from India I am torn between being embarrassed on the one hand and proud on the other; the latter because some pretty ordinary spammers are comfortably and consistently running rings around a premier American tech outfit.
Userlevel 1
Badge +2
As a former facilities manager or janitor now retired can I say how bemused I am that the moderators of this forum should see fit to reprimand Kumar for his use of what I regard to be a very apt simile? There was nothing of an insult intended by what he said. Ensuring that this or any other site frequented by the public, functions to its full potential without let or hinder is surely a janitorial/moderator's function? I won't assume to hazard a reason for the reaction but have my suspicions!

Kumar - I am another who enjoys your very positive contributions to these forums. Please ignore the misplaced official negativity! Someone's having a bad day!
Userlevel 7
Badge +16
What's wrong with being a Janitor, I think some offical post from Sonos is needed pretty quickly to clear this one up..

I got oddly moderated a month or so back, posts held back for hours (possibly because I wasn't over the moon with v8.0?).
What's wrong with being a Janitor, I think some offical post from Sonos is needed pretty quickly to clear this one up..

I got oddly moderated a month or so back, posts held back for hours (possibly because I wasn't over the moon with v8.0?).
That was not moderation that was the spam filters. Seriously.
I'm still baffled why Sonos got miffed about calling Sonos staff janitors in a respectful support of the work they are forced to do due to the utter failure of InSided to accomplish even basic forum tasks, yet disrespecful posters in the 8.0 and CR100 threads are allowed to call staff morons, incompetents, and other more abusive invectives.

Sonos, you need to clear this up.
In the same context, a quote from a message to me from the same source in Sonos, in a private conversation about spam over a year ago, is interesting: " We have a people working on what the best route to go would be. In the mean time, I get to swing my banhammer with one hand, and my broom with the other."

Regardless of what Sonos has to say about the reprimand now, on reflection I realise that it would be churlish of me to react in kind to someone having a bad day. I would still like the moderation thing to be straightened out though: Any failure of any post to pass moderation after a defined time interval, or any subsequent deletion of any post appearing on a thread, calls for the simple courtesy of a notification to the poster via private message. This cannot be done by Insided by any of their very dubious automation tools, so the question of thereby extending this courtesy to spammers, which would be silly, does not arise. If the support staff load then increases because the spam filter is defective in catching too many faultless posts, it is the latter issue that needs fixing.

As to the spam subject itself, Sonos now looks as incompetent as Insided on the subject of how to manage this universal phenomenon; it isn't rocket science as others have pointed out. Either incompetent, or, just as bad, negligent.
Userlevel 6
Badge +8
Every night now. This is pathetic.
Userlevel 7
Badge +17
the level of spam currently is a joke. please take some long-lasting action to resolve it to make this platform usable. i.e. replace insided by someone else (migrate to new platform) as they clearly have no idea what to do

How hard is it to add a rule to send all new posts with subject containing '91' for moderation ?!
On the other hand the intelligent spam filter continues to shine in doing dumb things; a very long post I wrote was red binned and probably will be consumed by the Roomba with no further explanation as it has done to many others I have written that were perfectly civil as well. I used the workaround of cut/pasting it as a private message to the target audience of one, in case Sonos considers me to be subversive to the community at large.
Userlevel 6
Badge +8
Okay, I log on at 11 pm Pacific Standard Time and two-thirds of the new posts are spam.
Userlevel 6
Badge +8
On the other hand the intelligent spam filter continues to shine in doing dumb things; a very long post I wrote was red binned and probably will be consumed by the Roomba with no further explanation as it has done to many others I have written that were perfectly civil as well. I used the workaround of cut/pasting it as a private message to the target audience of one, in case Sonos considers me to be subversive to the community at large.

They are still miffed about the sanitary engineer moniker.