Dear GAMESPOT can you sort out the spam issue?

Guys, how difficult is it to enforce some measures to prevent the site being completely overwhelmed by spam? Even if you have to lockdown the site to new users for a while. This is starting to look like one of those defunct forums where only bots and spammers live.

Do something!

Seriously. Whatever needs to be done. Forums are a big reason i come to this site, and recently things have been awful.

It's apparently super duper ultra difficult.

Well that, or GameSpot just don't care.

Hi gamespot. Just wondering if it can be solved by limiting new users to just post replies until they reach 10 post milestones like back then?

@ghost_of_phobos: Well it is a forum of trolls and alts, so you were pretty close with your description.

Yeah, I feel like I'm one week away from being done with this place for good.

Just when you thought Gamespot couldn't get any more disappointing, you realize there's always a new low.

Why aren't the mods doing anything?

I'm out, I'll check GS out in several months. Clearly they get money through traffic, does not matter if it is from spammers/scammers. Shit site, close down for good.

Hello GS.

Do you need help stopping the spam bots?

I'm sure the web dev team doesn't get as much support as they need.

I realize that staff still need to respond, but us mods have been working very hard to remove spam. Most of you on this thread are veteran posters and know that moderating is a volunteer "job", we have day jobs to take care of as well. I personally spent several hours on one day alone combating spam in Games Discussion and staff has been working on ways to systematically clear the spam relatively quickly after it's posted. Sometimes that means that mods have to hold off on clearing spam to test the tools.

But rest assured, GameSpot has been working on the issue. Your constructive ideas are welcome.

You know... I'd argue no new users for a little while would be better than whatever is happening on the site right now.....

@pyro1245: I would agree with that plus one way to track on which new users are posting the threads

A site like gamespot will definitely need new users to sustain itself even though at this point it's an established site. Also nothing is stopping the spammers from setting up hundreds maybe even thousands of accounts in the background before new user registration shuts down and then using those accounts to blast the site with spam threads.

Maybe sign-up should have a small, random window X amount of times per week rather than how it is.

Unfortunately this is the case. For most of these spam attacks we obviously have new accounts signing up as part of it, but these kinds of attacks are well-organized and, unfortunately, usually done manually by someone thinking about how to get around roadblocks. They shift IPs frequently, will copy/paste legitimate content to get around our automated spam rules or minimum post restrictions, will create massive amounts of accounts and then simply not post on them for months to get around time limitations, and so on. It's difficult to automate a response when the people on the other end see how you're responding and work around what you're doing, unfortunately.

We're aware of how frustrating this is and continue to work on it, though. Sorry for all the spam!

@rorie: Yeah but think of how appealing the site would be if it were exclusive invite-only 😁

I'm kidding.....

Godspeed, mods and staff! Hopefully the web dev team will find a good solution.

lol