The Personals Section in Online Classifieds

[DebonairDavid]

I've been occasionally looking at the personals section of various online classifieds in order to find potential tickle partners, mainly because I surprisingly haven't found any female lees close to my area on here, as I live in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Every time I go to the personals section, its always the same bottom of the barrel kind of people (scammers, catfishes, dead profiles, *****s, wanting affairs, and guys showing their junk). Very rarely are any real people on there, and I'm sure the scumbags have scared all of them away. I get that those scumbags sadly exist everywhere, either online or in-person, but I'm wondering why those sites never have any moderators to kick them off and block their IP addresses so they can't come back?

 

[WickedTouch]

For some of it, I'm sure it depends upon the site and the type of infraction. Some sites may not see some of that as inappropriate behavior, such as people seeking affairs or inactive profiles. For some of it, moderation of those sites can be expensive. It can be difficult to discover who is scamming if they are clever enough. It can be very resource heavy to look into every little reported incident. When the incidents are not reported (and they often aren't, as most people will just ignore them or give up on the site) then they are more difficult to discover by the already bogged down staff.

From the technical side, IP address blocking is only a small part in a bigger puzzle. Many people use dynamic IPs for connectivity–That is to say that their IP changes frequently. Additionally, people can use services like VPNs or proxies that allow them to change their IP address as often as they like. Sophisticated scammers sometimes utilize advanced systems, bots, and networking techniques to dump spam across thousands of sites with constantly changing IP addresses. In most cases, it's a much bigger problem to deal with than most realize.

One way to help circumvent a lot of that is to require identity verification, and then block identities that violate the terms. The problem with that as a business model is that the number of actual real people who engage is cut down immensely, usually rendering the business model non-lucrative.

I hope that provides at least some insight. It's definitely annoying how prevalent it is and how it ruins it for those who don't engage in that way.

 

[DebonairDavid]

For some of it, I'm sure it depends upon the site and the type of infraction. Some sites may not see some of that as inappropriate behavior, such as people seeking affairs or inactive profiles. For some of it, moderation of those sites can be expensive. It can be difficult to discover who is scamming if they are clever enough. It can be very resource heavy to look into every little reported incident. When the incidents are not reported (and they often aren't, as most people will just ignore them or give up on the site) then they are more difficult to discover by the already bogged down staff.

From the technical side, IP address blocking is only a small part in a bigger puzzle. Many people use dynamic IPs for connectivity–That is to say that their IP changes frequently. Additionally, people can use services like VPNs or proxies that allow them to change their IP address as often as they like. Sophisticated scammers sometimes utilize advanced systems, bots, and networking techniques to dump spam across thousands of sites with constantly changing IP addresses. In most cases, it's a much bigger problem to deal with than most realize.

One way to help circumvent a lot of that is to require identity verification, and then block identities that violate the terms. The problem with that as a business model is that the number of actual real people who engage is cut down immensely, usually rendering the business model non-lucrative.

I hope that provides at least some insight. It's definitely annoying how prevalent it is and how it ruins it for those who don't engage in that way.

Thanks for the info. Sadly, it sounds like those classifieds are fucked no matter what they do (no pun intended).

 

[WickedTouch]

lol, all I can say there is that maybe not completely, but the challenges are great and as long as they go unresolved, it begins to look like finding a piece of hay in a needle stack. Out of curiosity, what sites or platforms are you referring to? If it's a more local thing and you don't want to disclose it for privacy, I understand.

 

[DebonairDavid]

lol, all I can say there is that maybe not completely, but the challenges are great and as long as they go unresolved, it begins to look like finding a piece of hay in a needle stack. Out of curiosity, what sites or platforms are you referring to? If it's a more local thing and you don't want to disclose it for privacy, I understand.

Just any online classifieds, nothing in particular

 

[BlueLine7045]

All I can say is, I am happy I no longer have to deal with any of that nonsense. Same for online dating. Finding women online whether it be in classifieds or online dating, is nothing short of a nightmare. Hell, it was atrocious 10 years ago when I was trying online dating heavily. I imagine with it's massive rise in popularity now, it's gotten much, much worse.

Side note: i realize you're not talking about online dating, but at the end of the day, it all seems the same to me. The only thing that changes is the reason for finding them and the website. Same BS.