BrickLink Discussion Forum

In Off Topic, SylvainLS writes:

In Off Topic, WhiteHorseMatt writes:

[…]

Silver lining: (most) forum regulars have now learned how to report posts

It would be easier if there were a report post option along with View/Cancel/Reply
on the forum rather than having to go through the problem centre and dig out
the message number.

Yes.

It's easier to just ignore the spam and move on rather than report the user.

This depends on your default settings: with ‘Compact’ or ‘Brief’, the spam
is easy to ignore, with ‘All’ or ‘Full’ you’ll see them… but then I’m not sure
there’s people reading the forum like that

I do, but probably not many more...

Author:

SylvainLS

Posted:

May 19, 2023 08:20

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

39 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, WhiteHorseMatt writes:

[…]

Silver lining: (most) forum regulars have now learned how to report posts

It would be easier if there were a report post option along with View/Cancel/Reply
on the forum rather than having to go through the problem centre and dig out
the message number.

Yes.

It's easier to just ignore the spam and move on rather than report the user.

Author:

peregrinator

Posted:

May 19, 2023 07:01

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

51 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, SylvainLS writes:

In Off Topic, Ziegelmeister writes:

Rationalize it all you want.

Just.

Fix.

It.

FYI, discussions moderators are members, like you.
If if there were a technical solution (which there isn’t), neither Roo nor I
nor the others mods can change the forum’s code.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that while the spam is annoying,
it's not something that I think is a critical issue. I see 1-2 spam messages
per day, they're obvious spam, I can just scroll on by. Compared to the amount
of spam I see in my emails every day, this is nothing.

Author:

WhiteHorseMatt

Posted:

May 19, 2023 06:50

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

27 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, SylvainLS writes:

In Off Topic, Chickaroo writes:

[…]
Most other forums I’ve ever been a member of suffer from similar problems

+1

Hmm, there used to be a “Why your antispam idea won’t work” checklist for e-mail.
We need one for forums

So, to answer a few suggestions:

— Preventing newbies from asking questions on the forum is not very welcoming,
is it?
— Limiting newbies’ number of posts: most spammers only post once per account
anyway.
— The two previous ideas are worse when “newbie” is defined by feedback instead
of time.
— Captcha: most spammers here are human.
— Location filtering: nope, won’t do.
— Keyword filtering: I want to be able to talk about gummy bears and the new
Ford Escort set!

Silver lining: (most) forum regulars have now learned how to report posts

It would be easier if there were a report post option along with View/Cancel/Reply
on the forum rather than having to go through the problem centre and dig out
the message number.

It's easier to just ignore the spam and move on rather than report the user.

Author:

SylvainLS

Posted:

May 19, 2023 05:14

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

61 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, Ziegelmeister writes:

Rationalize it all you want.

Just.

Fix.

It.

FYI, discussions moderators are members, like you.
If if there were a technical solution (which there isn’t), neither Roo nor I
nor the others mods can change the forum’s code.

Author:

Ziegelmeister

Posted:

May 19, 2023 05:05

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

51 times

Topic:

Rationalize it all you want.

Just.

Fix.

It.

Author:

SylvainLS

Posted:

May 19, 2023 03:10

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

77 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, Chickaroo writes:

[…]
Most other forums I’ve ever been a member of suffer from similar problems

+1

Hmm, there used to be a “Why your antispam idea won’t work” checklist for e-mail.
We need one for forums

Author:

Nubs_Select

Posted:

May 19, 2023 02:20

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

43 times

Topic:

I think there’s more chance of people being convinced to buy pizza than these
spam posts working

Roo

Author:

Chickaroo

Posted:

May 19, 2023 02:03

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

55 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, BricksOfFaith writes:

Anybody know why there has been so many spam messages/scams on the forum the
past few months? It’s getting kinda irritating….

Most other forums I’ve ever been a member of suffer from similar problems
Unfortunately any website which features on search engines is prone to spam (I
think way back BrickLink never used to show up on Google - something to do with
spiders?)
I think there’s more chance of people being convinced to buy pizza than these
spam posts working

Roo

Author:

ghyde

Posted:

May 19, 2023 01:49

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

45 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, BricksOfFaith writes:

Anybody know why there has been so many spam messages/scams on the forum the
past few months? It’s getting kinda irritating….

It's because BrickLink admins can't or won't implement a keyword
scanning system for new posts that trigger on any spam keywords, and block them,
instead of letting them get posted.

BrickLink admins have to stop making it so easy to post spam messages, if there
is an automatic filter that drops spam posts in the system's equivalent of
/dev/null then spammers will continue to spam the forums with spam posts.

BrickLink will only keep getting spammers until they make it impossible for spam
messages to be visible. The way to do that is what I outlined above.

They have to stop the spam from getting posted to the forums in the first place,
or it's just going to keep happening.

Just my 2c worth ...

Cheers ...

ghyde

Author:

Nubs_Select

Posted:

May 19, 2023 01:41

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

48 times

Topic:

it’s the mustard gangs fault

Author:

wildchicken13

Posted:

May 19, 2023 01:21

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

53 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, here4bricks614 writes:

Agreed. What would be the cons of requiring accounts to be at least a day/week
old before being able to post?

There would be no more spam

Author:

wildchicken13

Posted:

May 19, 2023 01:19

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

70 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, BricksOfFaith writes:

Anybody know why there has been so many spam messages/scams on the forum the
past few months? It’s getting kinda irritating….

I agree, it's starting to get ridiculous. I guess whatever spam filtering
system BrickLink currently uses (if any) is just not enough.

I blame the pizza gang for these unfortunate circumstances, it seems they're
always up to no good.

Some suggestions:

1. Ban Nubs_Select, 1001bricks, and SylvainLS from the forum. That alone will
reduce spam by 17.4%

2. Block posts from users registered in India, Alaska, American Samoa, and APO/FPO

3. Remove the "Sales" topic (or hide it from view, which you can already
do BTW)

4. Automatically block any posts containing the word "gummies" or "escorts"
(sadly not TLG products as far as I am aware)

5. Invest in better technical anti-spam solutions for the site? Maybe more advanced
stuff using IP addresses or account limitations (like time or feedback requirements
to post)

6. Deprecate the forum, as already suggested: https://www.bricklink.com/message.asp?ID=1403154

Just some thoughts

Author:

Nubs_Select

Posted:

May 18, 2023 23:28

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

54 times

Topic:

not worth it as the forums can be helpful to new users.

Author:

here4bricks614

Posted:

May 18, 2023 23:07

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

63 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, BricksOfFaith writes:

Anybody know why there has been so many spam messages/scams on the forum the
past few months? It’s getting kinda irritating….

Agreed. What would be the cons of requiring accounts to be at least a day/week
old before being able to post?

Author:

Nubs_Select

Posted:

May 18, 2023 22:45

Subject:

Re: Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

59 times

Topic:

probably a teen dropshipper who sold something once thru 1 link and is now spending
all his time spamming until he sells something again

Author:

BricksOfFaith

Posted:

May 18, 2023 22:43

Subject:

Ridiculous amounts of spam on forum

Viewed:

281 times

Topic:

Anybody know why there has been so many spam messages/scams on the forum the
past few months? It’s getting kinda irritating….

Author:

Stellar

Posted:

May 17, 2023 15:32

Subject:

Re: I see why the help desk is so quick now.

Viewed:

44 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, macebobo writes:

I took my time to report an error through the Report a bug or technical issue
link

https://www.bricklink.com/helpDesk.asp?helpDeskID=114

and only after one day I got this back.

Thank you for contacting us.

For all API-related questions and suggestions, please contact our API Department at apisupport@bricklink.com.

They could not even forward it themselves and then let me know that I needed
to report issues there!

Ugh! I guess I am going to start calling them the less than helpful desk again.

Hello Sergio,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

We had a few users make us aware of this mistake and appreciate you letting us
know as well. We have passed the information on to our API team, and they are
currently working on getting this fixed.

Thank you again for making us aware of this, have a wonderful day.

Just got this reply to the same issue that I too opened a ticked, seems our concerns
got in.

Author:

SylvainLS

Posted:

May 17, 2023 12:51

Subject:

Re: Stud.io lagging with large builds.

Viewed:

30 times

Topic:

Related Software

In Related Software, Leonidaz writes:

So I'm currently building a large map about 200 by 300 studs in size and
stud.io always freezes when I move, copy or add pieces. I've read that putting
the 0,0 coordinates into sight when building should resolve the freezing and
crashing, but at the moment it freezes regardless of what I do and eventually
crashes.
There has to be something that's being calculated or something in the background
that causes the program to overload, but I don't know how I could prevent
this from happening. I've tried 30 and 60 fps options, colission off, but
both didn't help.

Does anyone have had similar experiences or ideas how to fix this

Hi,

The dedicated forum for Studio and PartDesigner is https://forum.bricklink.com/
(hover over the red Studio icon on every page, then click “Studio Forum”).

Please search the forum for your question before posting a new one (the search
box is in the very dark grey banner).
There’s indexes of known bugs and suggestions that you can browse first:
Studio: https://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5579
PartDesigner: https://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5589

The main threads talking about the problem you’re experiencing are those:
https://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7614
https://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7624
https://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8059
https://forum.bricklink.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8322

Author:

Leonidaz

Posted:

May 17, 2023 12:39

Subject:

Stud.io lagging with large builds.

Viewed:

53 times

Topic:

Related Software

Author:

Chickaroo

Posted:

May 17, 2023 08:43

Subject:

Re: (Cancelled)

Viewed:

50 times

Topic:

In Off Topic, peter_heyden writes:

@moderator:
Could you please remove / reject this kind of spamming? This is obviously not
by a Lego-minded member, since feedback is zero and membership started today.

Or is this kind of advertising paid for and meant to keep Bricklink free for
real members?

Pegard Peter.

You can report problem posts here, it helps us to see them if we’re not on the
forum at that moment.

https://www.bricklink.com/problemMessage.asp

Roo

Author:

peter_heyden

Posted:

May 17, 2023 08:36

Subject:

Re: Wellgard Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies

Viewed:

54 times

Topic: