Spammer List

From PluginWiki

The plugin can check your group's membership against a list of suspected spammers not multiple joiners.

What is a spammer?

A spammer is someone who sends emails unrelated to Freecycle or which only mention Freecycle as a pretext for the spam.
The content of the email is irrelevant, it is the method of choosing recipients and the action of sending it unsolicited, which is spam.

Those who leach addresses in order to send spam/abuse Freecycle are considered spammers.

When is a spammer NOT a spammer?

The person who joins a group that is not local to them--reject the member request, and if so inclined, send them to the correct group or to Freecycle so they can find their local group.
The person who joins one of the many Social Networking sites and isn't net savvy enough to know the site just bootlegged their whole address book and now are sending invites in their name. So the person may be a chump for getting mixed up in that mess, but they aren't intentional spammers, just not net savvy. Simply check your member logs to see if this member is active, even if one post is there for a WANTED or an OFFER, that should make the person legit (of course, if it's a legitimate post).

This is why the spammer list is reserved for people who actually send spam messages or serial joiners (see below) - then we have proof that they're spammers.

What about those serial joiners?

You can spot serial joiners using this function. Some serial joiners are spammers. Some are greedy. Some are interim moderators. Some just have family in different places, or work for a travelling circus (no, really, we've had one of those).

There can be many different reasons for someone joining multiple groups, so they're not necessarily a spammer. But if they join many groups over a wide geographical area, you can report them. See here.

Be Careful

Remember that there's the possibility that people will be wrongly, or maliciously, added to this list. The plugin doesn't do anything to verify that the email address is actually a spammer - it just means someone's put it on the list. So the final responsibility for removing a member from your group rests with you as the moderator.

Configuring Checking

You configure this from the page that opens if you click the following button on the Checking tab:

You'll see this:

You configure three things:

Whether to use the standard list of suspected spammers or an alternate one.
- Normally, you should just use the standard one, at http://db.modplugin.org/spammers.php.
- But if you want to use a different one, it can either be a normal file on a website, or a file on a Yahoo group. Just check Use alternate and enter the URL into the box.
The number of hours between checks, defaulting to 1. 0 means check each time you load a page - which is slow, but useful for testing.
The default action for when you spot a spammer (see below).

What you'll see

Periodic Checking

Periodically the plugin will then periodically check to see if the email addresses on this list are members of your group. If so, you'll get one or more popups like this:

You can then:

Do nothing, which will leave the member on your group and they'll pop up again next time it scans.
Mail the member, in case you want to ask them something. Mind you, if they're a spammer, they may lie. They'll pop up next time it scans.
Remove the member from your group.
Ban the member from your group.
Ignore this member from the spammer list. They'll not pop up again.
Stop the scan.

Pending Members

It will also check the pending members. If it finds one, you'll see something like this:

You should then refuse them membership.

Reporting Spammers

Including Evidence

These must be included in your report - we do not accept reports of spammers without supporting evidence.

If you report spammers using the red Spam icon which the plugin adds to the Messages page, then it will fill these in for you. But if you need to find the headers from an email, see here.

If you report spammers using the Spam icon from the Members or Pending Members page, then you must provide convincing evidence yourself.

Reporting Individual Spammers

To use this function you must already have an Access Key configured for your group.

You can then report spammers by clicking on the icon.

This will take you to a web page

If you clicked from the Pending or Messages page then it should have everything filled out apart from your reason for reporting. This should be something simple enough for everyone to understand, e.g. "British Smoker's Club".
If you clicked from the Members or Pending Members page then you'll need to fill out the reason, and your evidence.

Then click on Submit Request. What happens next?

An administrator will check the suspected spammer, and either approve or reject it.
If it's approved, it'll get added to the list, and other users of the plugin will be safe from that spammer.
You need to provide convincing evidence for a spammer to be approved. The headers of a spam message are good evidence.

If you want to hide this icon, you can do so from More Advanced Options:

Reporting Entire Domains

Sometimes spammers use addresses which vary in the part before the @ sign, but have the same domain (the part after the @ sign). If you have one of these, mail it to the Spam Administrators along with a copy of the spam mail as evidence.

Removing Spammers

If you feel an address has been added to the list in error, mail the Spam Administrators explaining why. We will listen carefully to your case and discuss it, but we will not enter into long arguments.

Looking at the spammer list

You can see the spammer list here.

Testing spammer list

See here.