Anti-spam confirmation link

Did you get a profile- or email-link to confirm your account? This is why.

Since we installed the robot check, we're working to clean out as much user-spam as possible. To that end, we've done some pattern matching to find accounts that seem like spam. The system is not perfect but, on close inspection, perhaps 95% of them are.* Our current method found some 25,000 such accounts.

Staff, but especially Abby and I**, chewed through some 6k of these probably-spam accounts manually, reading descriptions and following links. But our fingers are breaking. So the rest--and others we identify in the future--are getting profile comments (sometimes emailed) asking them to click on a link to confirm the account.

As it is now, members who don't click the link, have their profile marked as unconfirmed and all other text invisible. See bedbugsservice for an example. (Unblocked, this is link spam for an Ohio bed-bug removal service.) The account is otherwise unaffected. Because 5% of the accounts are real, there are no deletions. Of course, we may get around to deleting true spam actors, but it won't be based on this test alone.

This is separate and in addition to our more traditional spam fighting which actually shuts down and deletes accounts that REALLY stand out as spammers.

Tim

* Mostly they're link spamming us; users created in order to link to a website, generally from their homepage.
* Current leaderboard: timspalding (1,669), ablachly (3,532), conceptDawg (158), katemcangus (300), kjgormley (207), kristilabrie (105)

Thank you for all the hard work!

Wait! Everyone needs to know about bedbugs removal. "Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite."

>3 suitable1: Apparently especially in Ohio. But there is something called Google, that not only creates horrible robot detection programs, but will also let you search for bedbugs removal wherever you live.

Above you've written

> As it is now, members who don't click the link, have their profile marked as unconfirmed and all other text invisible.

but the confirmation message says

> To make sure we know this, please click on the following confirmation link. If you do this, your account will be disabled, at least until you ask us to re-enable it.

which says if the link is clicked, the account will be DISabled.

So which is it? Am I to click the link or not? Or does my incomprehension mean that I am, in fact, a robot?

Click on the link. It was a misprint.

I am lost. I did not receive any email- or profile-link confirmation message. So I am unconfirmed now?

>7 .mau.: Apparently they don't think you or I look like possible spam. If you compare our profiles to >5 keturn: you will see the difference, at least until s/he confirms their account.

>8 MarthaJeanne: in my case it could be that I am a LT author, so I had to confirm my identity in the past. But this is just a guess.

>9 .mau.: But I'm not. Out of 2,454,121 members, pattern matching found about 25,000 accounts that seem like spam. That means about 1%. This won't affect 99% of accounts.

Note: Spammers don't usually add hundreds or thousands of books.

timspalding said, "Click on the link. It was a misprint."

Thanks for confirming!

>10 MarthaJeanne: Note: Spammers don't usually add hundreds or thousands of books.

Yeah, let's hope they don't do that.

>7 .mau.: >10 MarthaJeanne:

Or had been here for 10 years and had accumulated a lot of medals and badges (looking at https://www.librarything.com/profile/.mau./stats/badges ) :) That would also be a very weird pattern for a spammer. :)

I will be very surprised if my account get flagged (or MarthaJeanne's above) in such cases. Or any account with similar patterns.

Beware the sleeper agent spammers.

>1 timspalding: Me permito escribir. Para informarle que por equivocación en la comprensión. Apreté una tecla equivocada.
Van mis disculpa. Ahora pondré mas cuidado.
Estoy ocupando mucho este sistema de Biblioteca Digital. Mis propósitos es poderla trabajar en el colegio el cual trabajo como Coordinador de Biblioteca CRA.En la comuna de Coelemu/Chile.
atte.

Mis agradecimientos.
Por los servicios prestados.

>16 JORGE_VALENZUELA: Jorge, escriba a info@librarything.org en su lugar, por favor.

>1 timspalding: Over on Litsy there's been a recent influx of followers to user accounts which I and others have noticed, which follow exactly 150 other people, post nothing, have no entries on Read Books, and one book To Read. It looks like bot activity setting up for some kind of spam campaign.

I'd be really grateful if you could nip this in the bud 🙂

Is it always the same To Read book?

>19 lorax: No, it seems to be random. Different, at least.

>5 keturn:

Good catch! Bad mistake...

Thank you for this. I hadn't logged into LT in about forever but after I did and made some changes to my profile, I got one of these comments. Great method for weeding out spam!

>13 AnnieMod: Except when the account gets badges for adding Spammy “published reviews.” My understanding, though, is those contributions disappear once the profile is gone. I have no way to confirm this result.