CUNY Academic Commons

I've heard from two users about an influx of spammy comments after the migration. See the email notifications they received below. I think we can work with these users case-by-case to change settings and better protect their sites, but I'm creating a ticket in case others get similar reports and in case this is indicative of a wider spam problem.

Regarding the first email, the admin of aapcappe.commons.gc.cuny.edu mentioned that they have no posts on their site, which probably why the comment is only on the Hello World post. Perhaps I could tell them to delate that post and make sure comments are disabled globally and they'll be ok. Let me know if they should try anything else.

In the second email, the admin of newsliteracymatters.com which points to newsliteracymatters.commons.gc.cuny.edu just made me an admin too so I'm looking under the hood. They had many posts, comments enabled and being published by default, so that's low-hanging fruit to address this. I've already changed the setting so comments must be approved by a moderator. I can work with them to delete comments, see if they want to disable comments entirely on all/certain posts, etc. but didn't want to change anything more before reporting here.

FIRST EMAIL

From: The Audio-Aligned and Parsed Corpus of Appalachian English (AAPCAppE) <cuny-academic-commons@gc.cuny.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 19, 2025 8:53 AM
To: Christina Tortora <christina.tortora@csi.cuny.edu>
Subject: [The Audio-Aligned and Parsed Corpus of Appalachian English (AAPCAppE)] Please moderate: "Hello world!"

A new comment on the post "Hello world!" is waiting for your approval
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://aapcappe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2017/03/09/hello-world/__;!!Jg5O23S-og4!7AdE7ZjqNOmTNdeEjIc1P-4aorgxSOjRf5yw-8U7bfsWJsYh3VGR2iUCMtmW8_EAxBHOOrS6PgYFvVI4JEeEb2mXjM3IfteExocIcVrWDg$

Author: 100 USDT (IP address: 106.127.142.21, 106.127.142.21)
Email: 75604372@outlook.com
URL: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.binance.info/en-IN/register?ref=UM6SMJM3__;!!Jg5O23S-og4!7AdE7ZjqNOmTNdeEjIc1P-4aorgxSOjRf5yw-8U7bfsWJsYh3VGR2iUCMtmW8_EAxBHOOrS6PgYFvVI4JEeEb2mXjM3IfteExoee7QOzfg$
Comment:
Thank you for your sharing. I am worried that I lack creative ideas. It is your article that makes me full of hope. Thank you. But, I have a question, can you help me?

Approve it: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://aapcappe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/wp-admin/comment.php?action=approve&c=1011*wpbody-content__;Iw!!Jg5O23S-og4!7AdE7ZjqNOmTNdeEjIc1P-4aorgxSOjRf5yw-8U7bfsWJsYh3VGR2iUCMtmW8_EAxBHOOrS6PgYFvVI4JEeEb2mXjM3IfteExofrlhQG5Q$
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Currently 3 comments are waiting for approval. Please visit the moderation panel:
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SECOND EMAIL

From: News Literacy Matters <cuny-academic-commons@gc.cuny.edu>
Subject: [News Literacy Matters] Please moderate: "Q: Can undercover reporters lie to uncover the truth?"
Date: January 19, 2025 at 8:29:38 AM EST
To: sissel.mccarthy@hunter.cuny.edu

A new comment on the post "Q: Can undercover reporters lie to uncover the truth?" is waiting for your approval
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://newsliteracymatters.com/2019/10/03/undercover-reporters-ethics-legal/__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!CvDQ6Da8imKth0OU7xEvABSfy4lgEjflG-ou_kExn1a0ChGkYCDTYmaZzJg4k5_urPFDqSmEuTXH1AU1d8G4WUzt6YOcoJksaSv6LPT-HcY$

Author: Gerardken (IP address: 91.142.73.116, host-91-142-73-116.hosted-by-vdsina.ru)
Email: dzhavgorat-tashdemirov1981@mail.ru
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Comment:
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Currently 16 comments are waiting for approval. Please visit the moderation panel:
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