what exactly do you mean by spam? Comments on videos you posted? Or posts to your profile? All of these generate automatic emails, but they can be disabled in your profile if you would like. If you mean you are getting actual spam mail, it is certainly not coming from our server. It is more likely a byproduct of you having your email address in your profile. I have mine in as James dot Roe at Gmail dot com. Which does not fool all data mining apps but is certainly better than not formating it at all.

Beyond that i strongly recommend getting a gmail account. I have at most one or two spam messages a day. I am going to edit your post to note that this is unsubstantiated by other members of the community.

RTFM

PS - I see that you have asked about this before. Have you tried any of the things suggested in that thread? Sorry to be a little testy, but it is very important to us that people realize we respect their privacy and would NEVER set about trying to enable this sort of garbage.

The spam isnt a problem as I can control it as I will. It is currently routed through a service that allows me to specify where emails are sent. It also employs a counter that tells me how many emails have passed through and the counter is roughly 300 right now.

Perhaps it is because I have my email in my profile, but I also have emails put in plenty of profiles on plenty of sites. If you want to defend your email server with the defense that Im spammed due to having my email in my profile, then it is a shame VideoSift is watched by spamming sites and I suggest you do something to fix it if possible.

The spam isnt a problem due to my ability to route the spam to any email I want or just ignore it entirely, but its sad that a site as nice as this has a problem with email spam.

Edit: Yes I have posted this before and I see that VideoSift still has a problem with spam. The fact is, I shouldn't have to worry about spam from your site. I shouldn't have to worry about putting my email in my profile. Again Ill state this: I have plenty of web profiles that list emails and none of those emails are spammed.

Your claims of spam coming from VideoSift are completely unfounded. If the email address listed in your profile is your true address, it is almost certainly being automatically collected by spammer robots, especially since this is a pretty highly trafficked site.

If, as James mentioned, you are referring to emails actually being sent directly from VideoSift, those are not spam, but system-generated messages informing of activity related to your account here. To reiterate James' point, you can turn off such notification emails in your profile.

In any case, you should choose your words more carefully because such baseless accusations demonstrate your ignorance a bit more vividly than I'm sure you'd like.

Any site that has a large page rank will have problems with its users having their emails scraped. There is nothing that we can really do other than hide email addresses from other users, but that is a pretty shabby way of managing things. It would cut down on a lot on interpersonal communication which is what makes this site a community.

"If you want to defend your email server with the defense that Im spammed due to having my email in my profile"

I am not defending our email server, I am saying that in no uncertain terms is our email server compromised. In fact all emails originating from videosift.com are initiated using a regular old php mail system that is integrated into the php kernel, we don't have an actual mail server to speak of. So the only logical conclusion is that people are scraping your email from your profile. It sounds like you have a spam blocking system in place which brings me to the question "what's the big deal?"

It's a fact of life in this day in age that you will receive email spam, 9 out of 10 emails sent in 2006 were spam. You seem to have dealt with it on your end, which no doubt every other member of the site has done as well. Why target us for something that is not our fault?

Perhaps I overestimated the ability of your web prowess to be able to block some robot from collecting the email of VideoSift users. Even though the other websites I have signed up for and submitted profiles for seem to have no problem finding ways to block the sweeping robots, Im sure VideoSift is somehow unable to set up some precaution. Sorry for touching on such a sensitive issue for you guys, Ill remember that next time I have an issue, Ill hold it to myself rather than create a post and communicate to the community about it.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Are you trolling here Anliz? Trying to get my pre-coffee dander up?

I realize you are being clever by using VideoSift@anliz.endjunk.com in your profile, but as was mentioned in your previous thread on this topic (which I don't think you've read), you're profile is viewable by everyone including email harvesting bots which look for addresses.

That's why most people obfuscate their address to make it human readable, but not readable by bots. You can also choose not to display an email address in your profile. This is the default in fact.


VideoSift does not distribute email addresseses to anyone - and statements like:

"Of all the sites I have signed up for in the past year, I have never received so much spam as I have from VideoSift" are inaccurate and unhelpful.

:-/ Sorry perhaps we reacted a bit harshly, but you have to be able to appreciate why it is bad news for us if someone is suggesting that we are a source of spam. Perhaps the reason you have not had problems on other sites is because they receive less traffic, have lower user bases, or simply do not give out emails publicly.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Anliz: If you want to defend your email server with the defense that Im spammed due to having my email in my profile, then it is a shame VideoSift is watched by spamming sites and I suggest you do something to fix it if possible.

What do you expect us to do? This has nothing to do with our mail server.

Every time I have an issue with this site, all I receive is flame. Of course the statement of receiving spam from VideoSift does not imply that VideoSift sends spam, but rather, sites using VideoSift's database do. All Im suggesting is that VideoSift should set up some way for robots to have more difficulty in finding emails, nothing more.

Edit: And dont worry, Im already prepared to be lectured on how I brought on the flame through my choice of words and my harsh tone

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

"Even though the other websites I have signed up for and submitted profiles for seem to have no problem finding ways to block the sweeping robots, Im sure VideoSift is somehow unable to set up some precaution. Sorry for touching on such a sensitive issue for you guys"

OK, yes - you are trolling. I think most community admins would find being accused of sending spam a "sensitive subject". No more food for you, I hope you enjoyed the buffet.

It seems rather difficult to make the point clear to you, Anliz, but you're entirely speaking through the rectum to even put together the words "sites using VideoSift's database" because the only site using our databases is this one. The data that you see on the web page (like your email address) is the same data that spam bots see.

By the by, why is it that you're so positively certain that this spam is being generated as a result of VideoSift? Is it that you only use the email address on your profile here?

You just get people stirred up because you're making damning accusations with utter ignorance. You have to be at least a little bit savvy as to how the web works and it is up to you to take care preventing misuse of your personal information.

The problem though is that people are probably specifically designing bots for our user pages. We could no doubt change them in some way, but it would simply result in a new bot. In fact we have changed the format of our profile pages several times since we started the site. One option would be to generate images, REALLY HIGH SERVER LOAD, but even that would only take some simple captcha technology to circumvent. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them, but doubt there is really a viable solution.

edit: forget it...

Also again I would like to apologize for "flaming" you, but please take a look and read your original post. It certainly seems like you are insinuating that we are facilitating this spam, and I would like to think that you can imagine why we would be upset about this statement. As for your other posts which received "flame" I looked through your other sift talk posts and couldn't really find any.

Our site thrives off suggestions, and as you have refined your thoughts in the comments this post has gradually become one, but at first it read to me like an accusation, which is why we responded so defensively.

James, I appreciate your responses.

Im going to insult myself to make a point. Every successful company needs a good relationship with their costumers. When a person erratically complains about a service received from said company, they need to be able to know that they are understood. Rather than take the literal meaning of all my words (e.g. spam from VideoSift"), James took the time to understand what I meant rather than tell me I used the wrong words to describe my problem and then insult me for doing so. Not to mention even going so far to apologize, which is highly commendable (even if he felt that I needed to instead of him).

I apologize Anliz... I see my response was harsh as well.

I do believe in maintaining good relations with the user base. It's just a website that spam emails on the world wide web are highly serious, word spreads fast.

I hope no bridges were burnt, as VideoSift appreciates the input of all community members.

Thanks farhad, I apologize as well for making it seem as though VideoSift would sell out emails to spammers. I meant no harm in my original post, I just wanted some resolution to an issue that has been bugging me lately.

Well, just a little *offtopic ( ) piece of information right here, but I have been getting TONS of spam email lately (1000s a day) and I think it is because my email was posted in my profile. I know this isn't VideoSift's fault, but is anyone else having this problem? Can VideoSift stop spam bots from getting your email off your profile?

snaremop, currently your email isn't listed so I don't think it has anything to do with your email address here.

Very troll like of you Snaremop.

You know I remember when you signed up to this website talking of how you loved the trust we placed in our users.

Yet more and more it's becoming clear that because of you, VideoSift policy will have to get more stringent.

*emails to junk@bigelectricb***.com* (asterisks to protect the joke =D )

lovely...lets all have a nice cuppa tea

I would like mine with sugar

wow..what a flurry of posts.

Suggestion for those concerned about spam: spammotel.com offers free mail forwarding/filtering, while protecting your real email address. If a site sells your address, you can know whodunnit. Or you can close off the pipe or only forward mails with certain words.

Sift guys, at the risk of rubbing the wound a bit more, what about javascript address obfuscation?

storm in a freakn tea cup.

AFAIK everyone is responsible for their own email spam, seems silly to blame a site for it... Everyone seems to forget that the email trawling bots are able to remove the obvious obfuscation methods so even that is no guarantee.

Cry for help?

i LIVE for deleting spam!!! woot!!

It's only fitting that this Monty Python sketch be included in this thread.

http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=1686

I am surprised at the tone of this thread.

I tried frying Spam in my dorm last year, the entire bottom floor stunk for a week!

Is this the complaints thread? Good, cos I've got a stinker.

Every time I turn on my computer, whether it be morning, noon or night, Windows XP loads up.

SiftLords, either you sort it out and compensate me or I'll defect to www.mediasift.com.
The ball's in your court.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

thecosmicshame: I am surprised at the tone of this thread.

What's surprising? The rancor, or the lack thereof? I don't think the admin responses to this were too over the top. Regardless of the intention, the wording of Anliz's post was very inaccurate and an attack on something that a few people have invested a lot of sweat in.

We can certainly take criticism - and there is a lot to improve and critique about the site - but to accuse VideoSift of sending spam is pretty shitty, considering our collective views on that kind of thing.

Suggestion to VS admins: Can we put like "Remove VS" from e-mail addresses?

Would it be possible to not show the email address, but instead a link that says "email" that calls a users addy from a database and makes a new pop-up window to display it?

excessive i know, but james asked for a suggestion.

They would just build an automated bot to click email, scan the email address and database it. The best way is of course a picture as mentioned above.

But I think it's excessive for something that is really the user's ultimate responsibility.

Emails can be hidden from public or exchanged between users at their own discretion.

Actually, farhad, I think what ren meant was to set-up an "e-mail to" form. You click the link, type in your message, and hit send - you never see the person's e-mail address.

Pretty simple to set-up - betcha Lucky could do it blindfolded - although I dunno if it's totally necessary. Not a bad idea, I suppose.

I've been tracking the spam I've been getting on my blog (yay more shameless plugs!), and it's amusing to see the steady upward march, and perhaps more amusing to note that gmail's filters are catching over 99% of the spam.

The <1% success rate makes me think that the spammers are dumber at math than Verizon staff.

BTW, glad to see that the initial incendiary discussion was resolved before I got here. Phew. That's why it's sometimes better to read comments backwards...