Google Taking A Bite Out Of Orkut Forum Spam

In the never ending war against Orkut spam (which seems to be increasing lately, at least in my Orkut inbox) Google has unveiled a new tool for community owners to help keep their forums clean and on topic.

Basically this feature allows forum owners to restrict access to communities based upon email (like @gmail.com, @yahoo.com or @ilovemyjob.com).



(Image Credit: Gaurav of Orkut Plus)

This feature may not only reduce spam from "strange email addresses," but enable businesses, charities and schools to establish public networks that are only accessible to those with the approved email address.

For details on how to set this up, please visit Orkut Plus!

Note: I am not seeing this yet in any forums that I own, but if you are seeing it within yours, let us all know how you feel about it (or even how it can be improved) in the comment section below.

Orkut Declares War On Scrapbook, Forum Spam

After enabling users to block unwanted messages in their Orkut scrapbooks, it looks as if Google is taking more aggressive measures to remove spam from community forums, as well as scrapbooks.

(Official Orkut Blog) While communities provide a great medium for people to come together and share ideas through forums, polls and events, lots of communities can be the target of spam. Until now, if you were not the community owner or moderator, you couldn't remove the spam if you saw it. Well that has changed. Now you will be able to click "report spam" to specific topics or items in communities that are spammy, even if you are not the community moderator or owner. This will help us take down spam faster and take the pressure off the community owners and moderators. You can also report spam on specific scraps that you see in your own scrapbook.

Google is probably doing this in response to the rise in scrapbook spam, which has been increasing due to the various "scrap all your friends" hacks available in certain programs or by various scripts.

Before this feature, users had to actually visit the offending person's profile and write up a complaint, which was 30 seconds too long in my honest opinion.

Now all a user has to do is check mark the offending scrap...



...and report it as spam.



Note: Since more often than not my scrapbook is spared from spam attacks, I decided to use a scrap from Fire Ball as an example...even though its not spam.

The one for forums is similar, although Google may want to enable users to report individual community posts instead of the whole thread as spam--unless Google feels like reading the entire conversation. ;-)

Orkut Spam, And How To Block It (For Life!)

Warning: This post is fairly long. You may need a cup of coffee (or even a few donuts) to get through this. ;-)

(Image Credit: AppScout)

Unless you are apart of the tiny minority who enjoys annoying the human race, you probably agree with me that spam is very evil.

Whether it's in the form of phone calls, emails or Orkut scraps from strangers, spam is the worst time waster in my opinion, mainly because their is no joy in reading or hearing messages that you have very little interest in.

So for those of you desiring to live a "spam free" life on Orkut, here are a few tips that you can use to make surfing Orkut a lot more fun.

Defend Thy Scrapbook

One of the great things about Orkut scrapbooks is the ability to leave messages that all of your friends can read. Unfortunately spammers have often used scrapbooks as a form of free advertising to the world, which can be iritating to both you and your friends.

Google has done an excellent job in fighting this using word verification, although unfortunately those days may be quickly coming to an end.

In order to keep spammers at bay, you may need to change your privacy settings to allow only friends, or friend of friends to post on your scrapbook. More information about that can be found over here.

Replace or remove Orkut email

Although its great that Orkut has an email system, its filtering abilities are limited at best.

In order to keep yourself from wasting time sifting through annoying emails, I would recommend either replacing Orkut email with Gmail or disabling Orkut email completely.

In order to set this up simply visit www.orkut.com/NotificationsSettings.aspx, and uncheck every box underneath the "message" column...



...and either check the boxes underneath the email column to have your favorite email address handle the messages...



...or you can leave all of the boxes blank and spammers will have no way of emailing you through Orkut (although neither will your friends).

Note: Currently there is not a way for only your only friends (or friend of friends) to email you, like the scrapbook, although Google will hopefully add this to Orkut sometime after their API launch.

List Digital Numbers Only

Unless you don't mind receiving random phone calls from strangers, you should never list your home or mobile number on Orkut (or any social network for that matter).

However, if you need to list a number online (for like business reasons), then you should list a "digital number" (with spam protection) instead.

Digital numbers are like regular phone numbers, and you can easily purchase one from Skype for a small fee, or from Google's GrandCentral for free (note: currently open to US users, but if you need an invite simply email me).

To add (or change) your number on Orkut, simply visit the "edit contact" page over at www.orkut.com/EditContact.aspx and scroll down to the "phone section" and enter your numbers below.



Last, do not forget to adjust your privacy settings in order to limit who can view your numbers.



That's it! These three tips have helped me avoid receiving spam messages while using Orkut.

If anyone has any other tips to add, be sure to let us all know by commenting below.

Hack: Mass Delete Tool For Friends (And Foes?)

(Hat tip: Dean aka The Dude of Orkut)

Update (7/9): Corrected original authorship of script hack.

Here is a useful tool originally developed by Rodrigo (and partially translated into English by Sharath) that gives users the option of removing testimonials, messages, topics and even friends en mass.

Here is a brief explanation over at Technowise.

(Technowise) Now deleting anything from orkut is a lot more easier with the Mass Delete Tool!
This tool is for mass deleting messages, topics, events, friends and testimonials. It will be very useful for all orkut users, especially the community owners and moderators. The orkut interface only provides multiple selection and deletion of scraps, and this tool provides options for everything else!

In order to use this hack, users will need to install Firefox as well as GreaseMonkey, and for the visually stimulated (that includes me) here are some quick screen shots on how useful this hack may be for some users.

1. After installing GreaseMonkey, search for the OMDT link.





2. Clicking on it will open a new mini window which allows you to adjust how fast you want the deleted friends, testimonials, etc. to take place.





3. Next, select Yes to turn on the script (other wise it will not work).





4. The options below simply ask if you want to be alerted on your homepage. Simply click yes on both items.





5. After you are done, click OK. A pop up should appear asking you to verify whether you want to turn this on or not. Simply hit Ok again to let the fun begin.





6. Next, select the friends that you want to remove. If you want to remove all of them, you can always hit the all link as shown below.





7. Next, hit the Delete Selected link to remove your various friends. Just in case you change your mind there is an Interruption link (not shown here) which you can always click on to halt the process.





8. Last but not least, a pop up window should appear, letting you know not only how many friends were deleted, but how long the process took.

This is a really helpful tool (at least for me) and probably is something Google should consider adding as a feature in the Friend Section. Users can download this GreaseMonkey hack over here, and this tool will definitely go underneath Orkut User Tools.

If anyone has any questions regarding this hack, please visit Sharath's post on TechnoWise Rodrigo Lacerda scrapbook as the community forum seems to have been deleted.

Update (7/9): Thanks to Mr. Nobody and Sharath for confirming Rodrigo as the original author. Props to both of you guys!