Thank you for letting us know, Emily. You rock!

P.S. Kerry: Will you give this woman a freak'in raise already! She's the only Editor you've ever had that actually tells us stuff.

Ah, I figured that's what had happened with the "phantom" comments. Thanks for letting us know!

Thank you for working to get rid of untasty Spam.

Now as for the beets--- bring on Beet Week!!

Aha! That explains it. I've had notices of comments sometimes that apparently weren't there and just thought that they were duplicate notifications, because at the same time I had genuine comments that were there.

Thank you very much for the information, Emily. Like everyone else, I appreciate that immensely.

Rated for Caring & Persistence.

thanks for the info, emily. i can't tell you how much appreciated it is that you tell us what's going on around here.

Keeping us posted is the most valuable part of this. Thanks to you and the whole team.

Keep up the good work. We all appreciate it. R

Hate the spammers, love the eradication. Thanks.

Thank you!

There has been a noticeable improvement even in the past 24 hours. Thanks for putting forth the effort and for keeping us posted.

Raises all around! Let's not forget the rockin' product team. Thanks, Emily.

Yes, a raise for Emily, stat!

And thanks for giving Zul's post the EP and cover it deserves!

Thanks Emily! I also have noticed (quite by accident) that sometimes, and not consistently, PMs will be sent to my spam folder even though PMs from the same person may go properly in the IN box ten minutes later or earlier. I have learned to periodically check the spam box now and urge everyone to do the same.

I second Amy's motion.

Thanks for this, Emily and team.

Thanks for getting on the case. These spammers have been messing up the feed and making it hard scroll through the Most Recent page. R

Thanks.

Thanks for all of your good efforts and for keeping us updated.

Emily, you are the bomb! I knew you were on it, doggone it.

Lezlie

Thanks Emily...you are SOOOO our hero!!! (Need a cape?) ;}

You guys totally rock!!
Here's a ticket for a celebratory song dedicated to your team's effort:

http://open.salon.com/blog/poorwoman/2010/09/14/another_spammer_bites_the_dust



Go staff!!!!!
R

Thank you, Emily. We were all waiting for some kind of action and feedback on this. ~R

I don't know if you are actually reading comments, but I have previously proposed a very simple solution to the spam postings. (I also proposed a very complicated one but I will spare you that.)

The simple solution is beautifully simple: Put a scroll bar in the frame where the new posts are listed.

The problem with spam comments is that they clog up the system. The problem with spam posts is two-fold: they clog up the bandwidth AND they make it difficult for us to find new posts from the people we like to follow.

IF you put a scroll bar in the New Posts frame, it would enable us to skate right by the offensive spam posts....and find the new posts from our friends and fellow travelers.

Or, if you don't want to do it with a scroll bar....how about a crawl instead of a static page?

Thanks much for the update. And I think everyone would appreciate more frequent updates on issues such as this. Even just every three or four weeks would be helpful. Without an update we don't even know if anyone is working it.

I figured that's what happened with the phantom stuff. And I figured you guys were working on the spam even if I did get a bit frustrated. Durn spammers.

Your time and effort on this matter is appreciated and respected, Emily, thank you!
R

Thank you!

I concur with mishima666. You need to update us more frequently on this kind of issues. As suggested previously, why not put a hold on new accounts when you're not around (evenings and weekends) until this problem is completely resolved. Hopefully, this will be worked out soon. Thank you.

Hello and welcome to shopping

Please visit our website stopsuspiciousspammers.com and remember to shop ed hardy til you drop,

just kidding.

The Dog stole my joke. Darnit!

thank you!! It's much appreciated.

I closed comments at my post this evening after receiving 5 or 6 spam-ads in about ten minutes.
I do trust that you and the staff are working on this.

@Mishima: Here! Here!

The volume is certainly down so thanks for your efforts there. But sure enough at 10:03 p.m. hchfh chgci spammed this post. Can't you block its IP?

They're back. The feed this evening is loaded with spam. I take it that the solution requires active intervention and is thus left to normal office hours? What about a permanent block on the offending IPs?

I love the new open news column.

Geez Black Jack Davy, why don't you tell us what you really think.

Oh and even though it's none of my business, I will stand by Amy and vote for Emily's raise.

Rated for action!

Thank you :) you do indeed rock.

Thank you hchfh for making your point(actually, go over to Joan Walsh's last post and you will note it is flooded with these type of comments. ~shrug~)

Oh well, thanks for the update. I still think a block of maybe under a half hour between posts is a good idea, most of these spammers are getting on and like posting a post every 5 minutes, sometimes more, sometime less...

But what the hell do I know, I'm just a cat....

Seriously, keep up the good work, your TroubleShooting/IT folks are actually pretty good(I think there's only like one of them though, you might considered getting a night/weekend person to monitor stuff like this.)

Good night and have a better tomorrow.....

Thanks Emily! I see on your blog that I can get a "Smful short_t-shirt_woman $15"

Any chance you could shoot these people some sort of spellcheck thingie?

Thank you, Emily. R-

Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Thank you for not just keeping us in the dark.

Emily,
Thanks for the information. I appreciate all the work that goes into keeping this site running and allowing it to be an artistic yet intuitively running platform for creative folks.

Thanks for trying to do something, and letting us know. I've been holding back from posting, and looking for another blog site because it's been so bad here recently.

I do encourage you to consider Catherine Forsythe's suggestion carefully. The serious writers here have a vested interest in having this site work well, and between our varied schedules we have "eyes on" coverage 24/7. If we had the ability to temporarily block an account by consensus of, say, half a dozen posters, leaving final judgment to your staff later, I think we could lick the problem in a very short time.

After all, the same dynamic applies to spammers as it does to us - nobody wants to put effort in posting stuff that doesn't get read.

We know some spam is still getting through and we're working on it. We're considering a number of new ideas, including the ones suggested here, in our efforts to cut down on spam and I'll keep you guys posted as to what's going on.

I was just about to order some sizes5-9Reeboks when I stumbled upon this post.

I find, Emily, that when spam situates itself in the comments, it tends to end the string. We've done it ourselves; we're reading along, have something in mind to say, hit a clump of spam, see nothing below it and wander off....

One of you who understands the spam technology? Post an explanation of how it all works; I'm curious.

Lois

Good news, thanks, Emily!

It's kind of funny, but because I'm not one of the more popular writers (not receiving an editor's pick every time I write a blog post), I don't get that much spam. So I would venture that the majority of posters don't have much of a complaint because the spammers leave most of us alone. However, every time I write a post that actually generates traffic, the spam starts up almost immediately. When I get an Editor's Pick, the spam goes through the roof. It's almost as if the spammers punish the ones who finally get a bit of success and reward those who remain almost anonymous on the site.

Is there some way to flag the comments as spam?

Wow! It's a first (and not a good one). It's 10:30 am on a Saturday and every freak'in post in the feed AND in the new posts list is spam. I will most probably be logging off this site until Monday. Weekends are just too much hassle.

Emily and Team, if you monitor the site at all on weekends, you know that as I type right now, there are no legitimate postings in the feed - NONE. It's not just clogged, it's FUBAR to the nth. We really do need an immediate fix for the site to remain viable. As it sits now, and during this past week, it's all but unusable. Sad.

Some spam? The nights and weekends belong to the Spammers here over the last few weeks!!

Right now, I'm waiting for you to EP em and put em on the Cover!!!!

:D

I'll shut up now!!

Much appreciated - whatever you've done it looks like it's working ...
Thanks for the update Emily.

thank you! :-)

How is OS monetized? How is money generated by OS to allow them to provide such a nice publication venue.

I vote for a raise too!

Hi guys -- We know that spam was really bad again this weekend. Product has a new spam prevention project in the works that we should be rolling out soon. I'll keep you guys posted.

Does the plan involve guns and hunting these Spammers? No? :(

:D

Keep up the good work.

Noticeable improvement in the past day or two. Thanks for taking this issue seriously.