I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s noticed more devious spammers / astroturfers recently (more so on other forums: but it appears to be getting widespread) – folk who post 5 maybe 10 random and inoffensive posts on a range of topics followed days later by “This company X are great”.

To those of you who dont rise early of a morning most of this will appear less of an issue (a lot – not all – of it is deleted at the start of office hours) – but bear with me….

On here I noticed earlier that the user name of the last poster on spam posts (when you hover over it) is suffixed with

“-spam”.

What a clever idea.

And – Im not referring specifically to any one STW post (the mech hangers thing wasnt too far off though -also there was a chap who chipped in to everything bike related for a few days then got the -spam suffix for I dont know what).

So what should / can we ask for / or do? Just be sceptical as ****. Have an an “L” plate for a week for new registers?

Yes. It’s all getting a bit samey. Some are pretty subtle. Or loads of us are just Really really boring.

any posts like

Quick question…
What car/bike/pressure washer/insurance?
Anything with a basic life skills/DIY question.
or posts starting out of context.

should be avoided and the posters referred to professionals.

id just like to say UKPLC is great.

Lose weight now, ask me how…

I totally agree, EGGS are great.

Build a tiki mug collection that your wife won’t stop talking about… ask me how!

Buy something from Progressive bikes 😉

loved my holiday with sierra cycling….

I know – I do know. We’re all getting more sceptical like. Probably in every walk of life. But as online commumities – what can / should we do? My worky forum is the worse – Mr A offers advise on problem, 2 days later Mr A is plugging his company big time and still offering “help” to others.

Now if only I COULD loose weight!

Inbred. 8)

I know – I do know. We’re all getting more sceptical like. Probably in every walk of life. But as online commumities – what can / should we do? My worky forum is the worse – Mr A offers advise on problem, 2 days later Mr A is plugging his company big time and still offering “help” to others.

I think the fact that it is a forum and people are hidden allows for this sort of thing to go on. People, on the whole, can work out who the spammers are pretty quickly. I think it’s fair that if the question is asked then it should be permitted that someone in the trade can offer their knowledge.
I also hear the deeper question regarding the problem of winter heat loss through your windows and reducing solar heat gain in the summer.

Just to be crystal clear – I’m not talking about bike companies / distributers who promote their products openly. That’s fairly obvious.

But paraphrasing an imaginary post history here:
– Reply- Best films you’ve seen: avatar! OMG
– Reply- Recommend me a ….: XXX
– Recommend a chain lube (from another new member): Jeepers – you’ve not tried Spank All Conditions Chain Lube, its the dogs!

#Edit – I guess in my round about way there are some stuff that its clear as day to me that some folk are ‘turfing. My OH never heard of it. Theres lots of stuff I’m no expert on and if I asked on here I wouldnt be bothered clicking on everyones history to see if they joined yesterday.

On the worky forum – its never ovbious til someone has wormed their way into “the helpful” books of someone else and then the links are already there much to others annoyance.

Ask me how!

ASK ME HOW!

NOW!!!

Ok – HOW????

Top end wedding photography in the North East? Stop me and buy one.

Maybe don’t look/trust threads unless the poster is a premier user 😀

#Edit – I guess in my round about way there are some stuff that its clear as day to me that some folk are ‘turfing. My OH never heard of it. Theres lots of stuff I’m no expert on and if I asked on here I wouldnt be bothered clicking on everyones history to see if they joined yesterday.

Surely it’s a risky strategy, as has been proven here, in that the tools that are used to promote a company can be used quite effectively against them possibly causing greater damage than good. If said company is offering something good, why worry?
In fact why worry about any of it?

user-removed – Member
Top end wedding photography in the North East? Stop me and buy one.

Others might see that there as top class spam right there! But that’s relevant to me. Top job (accidental or not!).

I dont want a premier (and associated sub premier) clicky through thing. I joined here a few years back – asked some daft Q’s, got some half sensible answers – others that were (at the time) off the wall. But I kind of trusted the answers. There was F all spam / ‘turfers.

Surely it’s a risky strategy, as has been proven here, in that the tools that are used to promote a company can be used quite effectively against them possibly causing greater damage than good. If said company is offering something good, why worry?
In fact why worry about any of it?

I laugh when folk are caught out. It’s rare though. In the mean time I dont worry about it – it just niggles me and some odd sense of community.

Carpets are bad for your health. Try timber floors.

18 bikes once fixed something of mine in exchange for money and it worked afterwards

Others might see that there as top class spam right there! But that’s relevant to me. Top job (accidental or not!).

Website in profile 😀

So 18 bikes tried to fix a bike and took cash from their customer who then came up with the name junkyard. Is that some type of anti spam?

Website in profile

Did you have a link earlier?

Not entirely comfortable with providing a link in a thread about spammers given the strange ways of Google, but do feel free to search for Emerson Photography – 10% disco for cyclists, free coverage if you can persuade the other half to have a cycling-themed wedding 🙂

Is this why no one has replied to my “recommend me insurance” thread?
Oh for gods sake, I wanted your advice on insurance!
You sceptisism is costing me money on my renewal, thanks the STW massive, you’ve been good but now you’ve lost the plot.

By the logic that anyone asking for a recommendation is a spammer that will only leave posts from people either complaining about trivial matters or the high horse riding pious types.(but at least there’ll still be plenty of posts!)

*cough*

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/profile/christineliao

Yes, I bet those spammers are employing people to visit forum just for the purpose of “Word-of-mouth marketing/advertisement”. Bear in mind there are kids out there with iPhone/iPad/iWant/iNeed/ that they want to put to “good” use so want to earn some quick £££. I know someone that is paid to tweet about certain products and each the products are mentioned she get paid, the same person would get paid too in the MyBookShiteFace…