The official what's happening about the spammers thread. MNHQ will only post on this one for the time being (sorry, not being hoity; it's just to save time)

[HelenMumsnet]

Afternoon.

We are currently mopping up after close on 100 (and that's just the last count) spammers posted all over our boards last night and this morning.

Thank you for all your reports. We hope you'll understand that we're not going to reply to them. Please take it as read that we're really grateful.

IMPORTANT: we think we have tabs on pretty much all of the spammers now, so (even if we haven't deleted them all yet) so there is no need to report any more. In fact, any more reports and our system might keel over!

Once we can see the wood for the trees, we'll post again and ask you to report any remaining spam posts we might have missed.

Please bear with us. We are getting there.

Any Qs, do post em here and we'll do our best to answer you.

Whiskey?? I have a rather fine single malt, or there is turps in the shed!

What a nightmare day for all of you at MNHQ, have and .

We luffs you MNHQ. More and from me.

Is this a bad time to ask for gin, chocolate and cake emoticons?

Well done Helen, Olivia and all. What a crap way to have to spend a Sunday.

More gin & from me.

Quick sober up Helen all is not lost!

Hello HQ. I feel really sorry for you all. May I ask please is there anything in place to stop it happening again overnight? eg adding a captcha to the registration process or all night monitoring?

You seem to be winning the battle of Spamalot now MNHQ.

I haven't seen a single one.

Either I am just not on here enough

or the gin is working

There's one further down this section!

Helen/Olivia it's from googleman737. You copped 5 of his posts which are still cached on Google, but there are still a couple left.

Maybe keep one for posterity?

I managed to source a picture of Olivia earlier today

Well done HQ

Oh lordy .... you poor MNHQPeeps.

There are still quite a few of the spambot threads here and there, but I'm not going to bother you 'cos I'm sure you're catching up with them as we speak. Crapola [humpfh emoticon]

Hard work's appreciated HQ :)

Might it be worth explaining what a spambot is and why such things occur? I've seen a lot of people say 'but what's the point, I don't really want to watch football, why would they post it on a parenting site' and although I haven't, for obvious reasons, clicked any of the links, I'm worried that people might do so out of curiousity. Spambot links of this nature ('watch sports for free', 'see naked women', 'see scandalous pictures of celebrity', that kind of thing that draws people in) are frequently used to infect people's PCs with nasty malware, so people clicking them would be a bad thing.

Thanks HQ - what a nightmare

Thank you.

hi everyone

just popping in to ask where i can see tv streamed live to my pc

anyone know

innocent look

Helen - I'd be looking at something stronger for your defence against Spurs this afternoon.

hth

It sounds like you've been cleaning the Augean Stables MNHQ. Have some , though is just as appropriate...

I reported a load of spam from 7am and see you still have about 100 spam messages in unanswered threads, nearly 12 hours later

What is the best way of reporting? After a while, I felt as if I was just adding to your workload, by drawing attention to each new spambot. Should we report, say 5, and then stop, or report new ones until we get bored with pressing report?

I noticed a very strange post re a Garelic football match- was that the spammers?

Oops Gaelic football match. Bloody iphone

I think the line is, stop reporting for now while they sweep through, and MNHQ will say when we shoud start reporting any missed shit spam.

You mean I've got to stop providing bogus match analysis for each broadcast and discourage MNers from signing up? Damn!