SPAM accounts invading the forum

[DaveMcW]

I agree the birthday list should be disabled, it is just a billboard for spambots.

Instructions to disable: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... 9#p2201329

[Kayanor]

There's a little game I also like play sometimes. At the board index, take a look at the birthday roll of honour and look at each user's profile.

Out of the 20 birthdays at the time of writing, 9 accounts appear to be spam for things ranging from holiday resorts, laptops, pharmaceuticals, to illicit drugs.

I guess whomever scripts the sign ups forgets about birthdays being on display?

Back when I was moderator, I regularly "cleaned" the birthday box. The first two days of every month always were a bit more... exhausting.
And then there was January 1.
https://i.imgur.com/tzdd7WY.png Open at your own risk.

[Squelch]

Back when I was moderator, I regularly "cleaned" the birthday box. The first two days of every month always were a bit more... exhausting.
And then there was January 1.
https://i.imgur.com/tzdd7WY.png Open at your own risk.

Ohh my word, that looks like fun.
I did check, and was relieved see my name wasn't mentioned

the only possible reason i can imagine any dev would actually care about this is due to search engine rankings.

i've not dealt with SEO for years, but I think there is still some relationship between links into a domain and links out. So having spam accounts with websites linked helps them and hurts you. (in search engine rankings) Especially if Google has those sites blacklisted as spam sites, you linking to them could get you blacklisted as well.

I think that SEO pollution is well known now, and I believe that known URL's that are abusers are filtered from the metrics already, so there's no benefit gained for the perpetrators, or indeed penalty for the recipient, non offending sites. I'm not sure if that works well universally however (out of my wheelhouse) I also have no source for that assertion accept anecdotes from friends in the know.