Why then are they most active only at particular hours? Bots don’t sleep. And as I’ve pointed out, they change their behavior periodically.
Some time ago we had a Spampocalypse where we had a massive attack of more than one hundred spam posts in a day. I happened to be one of the only mods on at the time and I banned over 60 spammers myself. If they can do that, why don’t they do that all the time?
(emphasis added)
Did that sound like a dare to anyone else?
That’s a good point. If not a bot, the alternative is that it’s a person whose job is truly awful. Hey, Larry, nice to meet you. What do you do for a living? I’m a spammer. ugh.
I love when they’ve taken a title from a thread–usually starting in the middle (sometimes the middle of a word)–and that thread shows up just above the spam thread. Plus, they have a name like: SpamIdiot@ Dingbat.crapola.
Cripes! I didn’t make that happen and I can’t unmake it. Did I f-up?
If you enter an email address with an @ in it it will automatically make it a link unless you uncheck “automatically parse links in text” under “additional options.” I fixed it.
Thank you, Colibri! One more item to add to my List Of Things To Avoid.
It was actually kind of fun that one day, seeing if I could ban them between them registering and getting their first post off. 
I just watched for new registrants and banned them as they popped up. But I wouldn’t want to do it every day.
The only explanation that makes sense to me is that they’ve got scripts to automate part (most?) of the process, but they still need human intervention in at least a few steps. Maybe the captchas? If not here, then maybe the captchas at the mail providers? Or maybe just for stupid stuff that nobody has ever bothered to write a script for: By analogy, our spam-killing process is also more cumbersome than it really needs to be, and could also be automated to be much quicker. Like others have said, there seem to be a fairly small number of individuals behind the bulk of the spam, and so it might just be that none of those individuals is computer-savvy enough to write the scripts.
No, boiler rooms or companies. Either several boiler rooms are using the same software, or one boiler room is making many of the calls.
Example: Many of the “lower your interest rates” calls use a robot with a light English accent for the initial call, then when you press 1, the message voice says, “your call is very important to us…” and that voice is sped up about 50% into Chipmunk territory. The hold music is Chopin’s Minute Waltz, and when the Indian-accented op picks up, there is a sound effect I will call “poike”. The clerk says, “Do you owe $2000 or more?”
Of this entire recognizable procedure, only the initial robot message changes from week to week. That part gets re-recorded with slight wording changes.
I’ll admit to reading this post and thinking it’s not just spammers who might be wasting their time and resources.
How many spam posts a day do we typically get these days?
Better than Whack-a-Mole, eh?
I doubt Whack-a-Mole appreciates that. 
In the past 24 hours, I count 22 spammers banned. Some might have had multiple posts, and some might not have posted at all if they were obvious enough and some moderator was alert enough, but that gives you the ballpark.
Everyone needs a hobby. If everyone wasted spammer’s time enough, we wouldn’t have spam. The reason we do is because it is immensely profitable.
Thanks.
I counted the number the previous day, and it was 26. So 20-30 is probably typical. About 80-90% at least of those are streaming spammers. There are often more on weekends, especially if there are some big games scheduled, or when a popular franchise movie is due to be released.
The streamers are the vast majority of spammers who post new threads. Most of the others are one-off, and are posted to threads relevant to the product the spammer is trying to sell that they found on a search and (often) zombified. These guys post once and don’t return. Unlike the streamers, they are targeting particular subjects.
Well, if you call yourself Whack-a-Mole you have to expect the odd hit on the head.
Another question about our spammers.
There’s a spam thread right now that’s offering live streaming of the 49ers vs Vikings game.
How is that supposed to entice me to join some bootleg website? It’s an NFL football game. It’s being broadcast live on NBC.
Okay, I can see how somebody might be tempted by offers of getting HBO series or current movies. But you don’t even need basic cable to watch football.
What market are these spammers aiming for?
There are other countries.
People living in the broadcast blackout area.
People without OTA TV (example:I think the Santa Cruz area gets no OTA)
Suddenly, I would kill for some Spam. Thank goodness this is Hawaii, and we have some in the house.