• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

User Guidance: How to identify and react to spam

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
46,277 (7.69/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
TPU is a big and popular community. Where there are 1000s of users from all over the world, 100s active at any given time, there's always an open invitation for spammers to spread spam here.

While we are adequately equipped with moderators spread across different time-zones, have a "one-click" method of destroying spam and deleting spam accounts, a good deal of this work relies on users reporting suspicious posts. Reporting posts is a guaranteed way of alerting the staff of something going wrong, spam being one of them. There have been several instances where users instead of reporting suspicious posts, quoted, and replied to spam. This is not what you should be doing. While any moderator can delete spam from anywhere in the forums, not all moderators can delete posts from users everywhere. Hence even while the spam is gone, the contents of the spam post(s) are probably quoted by a user a moderator cannot edit/delete. Here is a small guidance:

Identifying Spam:

Here's what a typical spam post should look like:



1. A username that makes perfect spam sense, sometimes the username has a random number or special characters
2. Signature space has suspicious links
3. The obvious links in the post's body

Sometimes the spammer starts off with something seemingly useless, with the post body saying nothing more than "very useful post, thanks a lot!" and the signature having a/some suspicious link(s), even this qualifies as spam.

Reacting to Spam:

Do not quote or reply to the spam in any way. It makes things difficult to clean up threads.

Report the post. Click on the
button for the spam post, just type in "spam" in the text box, and submit the report. Any active moderator will follow up with the report and delete the spam. Again, reporting posts is the best way of alerting the entire mod staff of something wrong, you would rather not send PMs or visitor messages to specific moderators, when you have the easier way of doing it.
 
Joined
Nov 17, 2007
Messages
2,228 (0.37/day)
Location
Larisa, Greece
System Name StarCruiser Dark Knight v.2
Processor Intel® Core™ i5-3570K
Motherboard P8Z77-V LX
Cooling 1x custom W/C loop/ inflow:6x120 /outflow:4x120, 2x200
Memory Viper 3 Black Mamba (4x4GB)
Video Card(s) Powercolor LCS 5870
Storage 1X 128GB OCZ, 2 x 1.500 Gb Seagate
Display(s) Samsung 24" LC24F396
Case custom MDF case (I BUILT IT) check sig.....NOW
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Tagan 900 watt
Software Win 7 RC / Open office / Games
we try our best!
The last thing we all need is a site full of spam....
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (8.21/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
this needs to be stickied. It gets tiresome cleaning up after people start quoting the spam post... even if we ban the spammer, his posts live on in quotes.
 
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
8,518 (1.43/day)
Location
Kansas City
System Name The Dove Box Rev 3.0
Processor i7 8700k @ 4.7GHz
Motherboard Asus Maximus X APEX
Cooling Custom water loop
Memory 16GB 3600 MHz DDR4
Video Card(s) 2x MSI 780 Ti's in SLI
Storage 500GB Samsung 850 PCIe SSD, 4TB
Display(s) 27" Asus 144Hz
Case Enermax Fulmo GT
Audio Device(s) ON BOARD FTW
Power Supply Corsair 1200W
Keyboard Logitech G510
Software Win 10 64x
I actually read this thread earlier and it seriously helped with the spam I just reported.

I thought earlier that the I hadn't seen any spam in a while, guess it was all timing.
 

Polaris573

Senior Moderator
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,268 (0.61/day)
Location
Little Rock, USA
Processor LGA 775 Intel Q9550 2.8 Ghz
Motherboard MSI P7N Diamond - 780i Chipset
Cooling Arctic Freezer
Memory 6GB G.Skill DDRII 800 4-4-3-5
Video Card(s) Sapphire HD 7850 2 GB PCI-E
Storage 1 TB Seagate 32MB Cache, 250 GB Seagate 16MB Cache
Display(s) Acer X203w
Case Coolermaster Centurion 5
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
Power Supply OCZ StealthXStream 600 Watt
Software Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Good idea and nice work Btarunr.
 
Joined
Nov 17, 2007
Messages
2,228 (0.37/day)
Location
Larisa, Greece
System Name StarCruiser Dark Knight v.2
Processor Intel® Core™ i5-3570K
Motherboard P8Z77-V LX
Cooling 1x custom W/C loop/ inflow:6x120 /outflow:4x120, 2x200
Memory Viper 3 Black Mamba (4x4GB)
Video Card(s) Powercolor LCS 5870
Storage 1X 128GB OCZ, 2 x 1.500 Gb Seagate
Display(s) Samsung 24" LC24F396
Case custom MDF case (I BUILT IT) check sig.....NOW
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Tagan 900 watt
Software Win 7 RC / Open office / Games
this needs to be stickied. It gets tiresome cleaning up after people start quoting the spam post... even if we ban the spammer, his posts live on in quotes.

I agree... this should be stickied!
 

Fitseries3

Eleet Hardware Junkie
Joined
Oct 6, 2007
Messages
15,508 (2.58/day)
Location
Republic of Texas
the report post button is also the formal way to tell the mods/admins if someone is provoking an argument, "flaming", name calling, or any situation which needs to be intercepted by a higher power.
 
Joined
Dec 10, 2007
Messages
7,185 (1.21/day)
Location
Adelaide Australia
System Name Becca 2
Processor AMD A10 4600m quad core @ 2.3 ghz
Motherboard dunno
Cooling Logitech alto connect
Memory 16 Gig ddr3 1600mhz
Video Card(s) Ati HD 7660G + & 7470M
Storage 1 TB
Audio Device(s) onboard crap
Software Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit with sp1
Excellent post particularly with the identifying spam as some are easier to pick as spam than others.
 
K

kyle2020

Guest
Spot on guide for newer members. If in doubt, always ask a mod or someone in higher power!
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (8.21/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
oh rofl, BTA just deleted a spam post from this thread!
 

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
46,277 (7.69/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
Around ~30 seconds after it was posted. :)
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (8.21/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.
Around ~30 seconds after it was posted. :)

and 10 seconds before i came into this thread. it always amases me how you and sneeky can find and delete spam before i even get the email alerts telling me the threads got a new post.
 

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
46,277 (7.69/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
and 10 seconds before i came into this thread. it always amases me how you and sneeky can find and delete spam before i even get the email alerts telling me the threads got a new post.

The aliens upgraded our anti-spam reflexes. I'd asked for better reflexes on the road though. Life is unfair.
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2005
Messages
11,655 (1.73/day)
System Name Compy 386
Processor 7800X3D
Motherboard Asus
Cooling Air for now.....
Memory 64 GB DDR5 6400Mhz
Video Card(s) 7900XTX 310 Merc
Storage Samsung 990 2TB, 2 SP 2TB SSDs and over 10TB spinning
Display(s) 56" Samsung 4K HDR
Audio Device(s) ATI HDMI
Mouse Logitech MX518
Keyboard Razer
Software A lot.
Benchmark Scores Its fast. Enough.
fried spam sarnie on toast with mustard please
 
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
8,518 (1.43/day)
Location
Kansas City
System Name The Dove Box Rev 3.0
Processor i7 8700k @ 4.7GHz
Motherboard Asus Maximus X APEX
Cooling Custom water loop
Memory 16GB 3600 MHz DDR4
Video Card(s) 2x MSI 780 Ti's in SLI
Storage 500GB Samsung 850 PCIe SSD, 4TB
Display(s) 27" Asus 144Hz
Case Enermax Fulmo GT
Audio Device(s) ON BOARD FTW
Power Supply Corsair 1200W
Keyboard Logitech G510
Software Win 10 64x
Bump, looks like we've been spammed again.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2009
Messages
2,644 (0.48/day)
Location
...
System Name MRCOMP!
Processor 5800X3D
Motherboard MSI Gaming Plus
Cooling Corsair 280 AIO
Memory 64GB 3600mhz
Video Card(s) GTX3060
Storage 1TB SSD
Display(s) Samsung Neo
Case No Case... just sitting on cardboard :D
Power Supply Antec 650w
Mods seem to be AFK :D... longest spam post iv ever seen on TPU... usualy there gone within 90 seconds. this one is still here 15 mins later.
 
Joined
May 5, 2009
Messages
2,270 (0.42/day)
Location
the uk that's all you need to know ;)
System Name not very good (wants throwing out window most of time)
Processor xp3000@ 2.17ghz pile of sh** /i7 920 DO on air for now
Motherboard msi kt6 delta oap /gigabyte x58 ud7 (rev1.0)
Cooling 1 green akasa 8cm(rear) 1 multicoloured akasa(hd) 1 12 cm (intake) 1 9cm with circuit from old psu
Memory 1.25 gb kingston hyperx @333mhz/ 3gb corsair dominator xmp 1600mhz
Video Card(s) (agp) hd3850 not bad not really suitable for mobo n processor/ gb hd5870
Storage wd 320gb + samsung 320 gig + wd 1tb 6gb/s
Display(s) compaq mv720
Case thermaltake XaserIII skull / coolermaster cm 690II
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply corsair hx 650 w which solved many problems (blew up) /850w corsair
Software xp pro sp3/ ? win 7 ultimate (32 bit)
Benchmark Scores 6543 3d mark05 ye ye not good but look at the processor /uknown as still not benched
i sent bta and mussels an email maybe he and everyone else is busy
 

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
58,413 (8.21/day)
Location
Oystralia
System Name Rainbow Sparkles (Power efficient, <350W gaming load)
Processor Ryzen R7 5800x3D (Undervolted, 4.45GHz all core)
Motherboard Asus x570-F (BIOS Modded)
Cooling Alphacool Apex UV - Alphacool Eisblock XPX Aurora + EK Quantum ARGB 3090 w/ active backplate
Memory 2x32GB DDR4 3600 Corsair Vengeance RGB @3866 C18-22-22-22-42 TRFC704 (1.4V Hynix MJR - SoC 1.15V)
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 3090 SG 24GB: Underclocked to 1700Mhz 0.750v (375W down to 250W))
Storage 2TB WD SN850 NVME + 1TB Sasmsung 970 Pro NVME + 1TB Intel 6000P NVME USB 3.2
Display(s) Phillips 32 32M1N5800A (4k144), LG 32" (4K60) | Gigabyte G32QC (2k165) | Phillips 328m6fjrmb (2K144)
Case Fractal Design R6
Audio Device(s) Logitech G560 | Corsair Void pro RGB |Blue Yeti mic
Power Supply Fractal Ion+ 2 860W (Platinum) (This thing is God-tier. Silent and TINY)
Mouse Logitech G Pro wireless + Steelseries Prisma XL
Keyboard Razer Huntsman TE ( Sexy white keycaps)
VR HMD Oculus Rift S + Quest 2
Software Windows 11 pro x64 (Yes, it's genuinely a good OS) OpenRGB - ditch the branded bloatware!
Benchmark Scores Nyooom.

Polaris573

Senior Moderator
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,268 (0.61/day)
Location
Little Rock, USA
Processor LGA 775 Intel Q9550 2.8 Ghz
Motherboard MSI P7N Diamond - 780i Chipset
Cooling Arctic Freezer
Memory 6GB G.Skill DDRII 800 4-4-3-5
Video Card(s) Sapphire HD 7850 2 GB PCI-E
Storage 1 TB Seagate 32MB Cache, 250 GB Seagate 16MB Cache
Display(s) Acer X203w
Case Coolermaster Centurion 5
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
Power Supply OCZ StealthXStream 600 Watt
Software Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Don't e-mail us for spam. Just use the report post button and someone will get to it eventually.

We get e-mail alerts when you report a post. If we're busy we're busy a 15 minute spam thread isn't the end of the world.
 
Joined
Nov 4, 2005
Messages
11,655 (1.73/day)
System Name Compy 386
Processor 7800X3D
Motherboard Asus
Cooling Air for now.....
Memory 64 GB DDR5 6400Mhz
Video Card(s) 7900XTX 310 Merc
Storage Samsung 990 2TB, 2 SP 2TB SSDs and over 10TB spinning
Display(s) 56" Samsung 4K HDR
Audio Device(s) ATI HDMI
Mouse Logitech MX518
Keyboard Razer
Software A lot.
Benchmark Scores Its fast. Enough.
I just want to say if a post includes good looking female breasts it won't get reported by me.
 
Joined
May 5, 2009
Messages
2,270 (0.42/day)
Location
the uk that's all you need to know ;)
System Name not very good (wants throwing out window most of time)
Processor xp3000@ 2.17ghz pile of sh** /i7 920 DO on air for now
Motherboard msi kt6 delta oap /gigabyte x58 ud7 (rev1.0)
Cooling 1 green akasa 8cm(rear) 1 multicoloured akasa(hd) 1 12 cm (intake) 1 9cm with circuit from old psu
Memory 1.25 gb kingston hyperx @333mhz/ 3gb corsair dominator xmp 1600mhz
Video Card(s) (agp) hd3850 not bad not really suitable for mobo n processor/ gb hd5870
Storage wd 320gb + samsung 320 gig + wd 1tb 6gb/s
Display(s) compaq mv720
Case thermaltake XaserIII skull / coolermaster cm 690II
Audio Device(s) onboard
Power Supply corsair hx 650 w which solved many problems (blew up) /850w corsair
Software xp pro sp3/ ? win 7 ultimate (32 bit)
Benchmark Scores 6543 3d mark05 ye ye not good but look at the processor /uknown as still not benched
yeah but your email linked to nothing lol.

:laugh: that's probably because said person was gone before you read it :D
never mind it just bugged me that no one was around, but that's how it is sometimes, doubt it'll happen again :toast:


Don't e-mail us for spam. Just use the report post button and someone will get to it eventually.

We get e-mail alerts when you report a post. If we're busy we're busy a 15 minute spam thread isn't the end of the world.

i do talk to you guys outside of tpu (sometimes, well maybe not you polaris :p)
 
Joined
Mar 26, 2010
Messages
9,762 (1.91/day)
Location
Jakarta, Indonesia
System Name micropage7
Processor Intel Xeon X3470
Motherboard Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. P55A-UD3R (Socket 1156)
Cooling Enermax ETS-T40F
Memory Samsung 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3
Video Card(s) NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800
Storage V-GEN03AS18EU120GB, Seagate 2 x 1TB and Seagate 4TB
Display(s) Samsung 21 inch LCD Wide Screen
Case Icute Super 18
Audio Device(s) Auzentech X-Fi Forte
Power Supply Silverstone 600 Watt
Mouse Logitech G502
Keyboard Sades Excalibur + Taihao keycaps
Software Win 7 64-bit
Benchmark Scores Classified

Polaris573

Senior Moderator
Joined
Feb 26, 2005
Messages
4,268 (0.61/day)
Location
Little Rock, USA
Processor LGA 775 Intel Q9550 2.8 Ghz
Motherboard MSI P7N Diamond - 780i Chipset
Cooling Arctic Freezer
Memory 6GB G.Skill DDRII 800 4-4-3-5
Video Card(s) Sapphire HD 7850 2 GB PCI-E
Storage 1 TB Seagate 32MB Cache, 250 GB Seagate 16MB Cache
Display(s) Acer X203w
Case Coolermaster Centurion 5
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
Power Supply OCZ StealthXStream 600 Watt
Software Windows 7 Ultimate x64

VeniceH

New Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2011
Messages
3 (0.00/day)
Location
Los Angeles, California
Hello there people! I am also very sensitive to spammers. I will cooperate to slash them out from our community.
 
Top