[MrSnow]

As you may or may not have noticed, we have had some not-so-wonderful spam in the last few weeks. We've seen it creep into posts and new threads, resulting in much work for the team and frustration for you, our members.

I wanted to address this in a State of the Nation-type post and clarify what is going on without giving away too much of what we are doing behind the scenes -- a community manager must have their secrets, after all.

So, what's going on?
We have been under attack from a malicious third party, and while their intent isn't to bring down the community, they have, a few times, caused it to slow down. A number of "bad links" have been posted from these spam accounts, which, in many cases, have contained malware. Please ensure that if you have clicked any of the links, you take appropriate measures to secure your device(s).

So what are we doing about it?
Rest assured, we are following through. Our very talented tech team is working on several new countermeasures to prevent such attacks in the future. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we implement these changes.

While we implement the next generation of these countermeasures, you might find yourself in a situation where your post doesn't go on the forum immediately but instead ends up in our moderation queue. Don't worry; this is a temporary measure, and YOU can help us immensely by continuing your activity on the forums. This will allow us and our systems to get a lot better at spotting malicious activity. That way, we get better at getting rid of the spam before you even see it and creating a more engaged and robust experience for your fellow members.

How will this affect you?
As time passes and we see more of your activity, you will see fewer and fewer of the countermeasures. That doesn't mean they aren't there; it just means that the new systems are working. The more you're active, the less it will affect you.

What about the future?
Well, fingers crossed, everything will be back to almost normal very shortly. But we have taken the opportunity to make some changes to the overall set-up that we will be rolling out in the future Including new quality of life improvements that I'm personally excited about, so stay tuned!

As always, all the love,

Mr.Snow

[MustafaM7moud]

Nobody does 😅😅😅
good luck for the community team countering this annoying behavior, hoping it doesn't show and bother anyone any more 🤞

[MrSnow]

1) Love your signature
2) Thank you, fingers crossed indeed :)

[M2lobaz]

Appreciating your hard work, thanks for keeping this community safe and friendly✌

[DracoTarot]

@MrSnow The only Spam I like comes in a can. 😄 Many thanks for the dedication and hard work keeping the community safe. I wish they would all go live on another planet and annoy each other. 😉

[MrSnow]

@DracoTarot I did this Korean spam noodle soup thing with cheese (I know sounds off) and it was gorgeous. Uh maybe that's what I'm having for lunch.

And yes, that's the only spam we like!

[DracoTarot]

@MrSnow It doesn't sound bad. I'm all for out-of-the-ordinary foods and recipes. I am not sure if Spam noodle soup would be available here to purchase in a supermarket. I guess I can try and make my own. 😂

[ZaidH]

It was kinda scary to see the bots evolve from simple random posts to straight-up commenting in normal threads 🫥 Have seen these posts go down quite a bit, so major kudos to the team for being the shield of this community 🛡️

[GoLLuM13]

Sending you all good vibes, and good luck 😁

[MrSnow]

Originally Posted by ZaidH

It was kinda scary to see the bots evolve from simple random posts to straight-up commenting in normal threads 🫥 Have seen these posts go down quite a bit, so major kudos to the team for being the shield of this community 🛡️

In a world of increasingly capable LLM's it is frightening how close to human they can get. Luckily we are now ready for the next one.