Suggestion regarding spam

[Magic]

OUCH! That poor baby elephant.



We are pretty good at catching spammers and removing their junk. We have some decent anti-spam management in place, but occasionally one gets through as a poser. In that case, they usually end up banned anyway.

 

[Vehicle]

Elephant?

I thought it was Snufflupagus.

I personally enjoy Spam sliced and fried crispy with cheese melted on top.

You can actually hear your arteries hardening while you're eating it.

 

[TheSound]

^^There is always spam, most of the time the crew manages to catch it early so they aren't around long enough to do more than a few posts.

Sometimes they are smart, register, log in and start sending PM's to our members when that happens we depend on whoever received a spammer's PM to notify us so we can take care of them.

If we do put some safeguards in place that would just eliminate the fly-by garden variety spammer which makes up the vast majority of that...most useless group of online people.

Also TS we can arrange things so a new arrival can only PM us, just not a regular member and after 20 posts then they have full access to everything.

Finally, although you can't see it we have a MASSIVE list of Spammers we keep track of everyone we've banned.

LG, you and the 'staff' run a great forum, and nobody can say otherwise, and I would never normally contradict anything you do, but believe it or not somebody was once reckless enough to make me an actual admin on an internet forum (sports, which are the lunatic asylums of all internet forums) and our zero-tolerance policy worked well. I really don’t know what else to say, but I just feel it’s the responsibility of the forum moderators and admins to monitor the forums and deal with spam when appropriate, rather than imposing instant restrictions on innocent newbies before they have even had the chance to post anything. For every 1 spammer on here there will be 100 new members who just want to rock ‘n roll. So the spammers have actually won in a way, and achieved their objective in disrupting the forum, and so when they appear and start posting their links and garbage and PM'ing, the other 99 good new guys are all inconvenienced, and have to have restrictions placed on their membership. But anyway, keep up the good work, it's no biggie, the only PM's I seem to get are from oldies telling me to shut my cake-hole, not spammer newbies trying to sell me herbal health products

 

[Squidbilly]

spammer newbies trying to sell me herbal health products

Nothing wrong with some Herbal Products once in a while***:


I like sometimes to poke the stick at spammers!

 

[Riff Raff]

LG, you and the 'staff' run a great forum, and nobody can say otherwise, and I would never normally contradict anything you do, but believe it or not somebody was once reckless enough to make me an actual admin on an internet forum (sports, which are the lunatic asylums of all internet forums) and our zero-tolerance policy worked well. I really don’t know what else to say, but I just feel it’s the responsibility of the forum moderators and admins to monitor the forums and deal with spam when appropriate, rather than imposing instant restrictions on innocent newbies before they have even had the chance to post anything. For every 1 spammer on here there will be 100 new members who just want to rock ‘n roll. So the spammers have actually won in a way, and achieved their objective in disrupting the forum, and so when they appear and start posting their links and garbage and PM'ing, the other 99 good new guys are all inconvenienced, and have to have restrictions placed on their membership. But anyway, keep up the good work, it's no biggie, the only PM's I seem to get are from oldies telling me to shut my cake-hole, not spammer newbies trying to sell me herbal health products

I don't really see it as spammers having won. Spammers are far more frequent here than you think as LG stated above. I think having some form of safeguard is a pretty good idea. I do like the idea of the 20 posts before they can access everything as well. This would help determine genuine members over clear spammers. I don't see it as that much of a hassle, if they are genuine members just contribute to the forum like normally and they will be fine.

 

[TheSound]

My point is that when you change or introduce new policy or rules because of the actions of a few deadbeats, which inconveniences the rule obeying and law abiding majority, then this is precisely the reaction which the individuals concerned were hoping for. So in this case, membership and registration criteria is being dictated by the spammers, not by the people who run the forum. This is why I have to stand in line for 30 minutes with my pants falling down, my belt in my hand, my shoes in a box, and some guy confiscating my toothpaste every time I pass through an airport...because some guy once smuggled explosives onto a plane in the soles of his sneakers. I don't even see a 20 post limit as helping....a determined spammer could just vote in 20 polls, which would take him 10 minutes max, and then he has instantly gotten around the new rules. The only way to fight spammers is to ban them when they begin, and keep banning them until they get bored with it before you do, and they clear off to another forum.

 

[Riff Raff]

I still think a safeguard against them is a good idea though, maybe have each member verified in registration to the forum by an admin or something. I still think a post count restriction or a PM restriction is a good idea actually, as for spammers who bump their count up with merely voting on polls that can easily be dealt with. Just my two cents on the matter, I get what you're saying but I still think it is a good idea to have some measure to stop the spammers being as frequent. As for saying spammers are winning by this, I don't entirely agree considering most of them are probably spam bots that do the spam posts on numerous forums.

 

[TheSound]

That's fine Riff, I'm just one lonely voice, which happens!!! I expect the 'staff' have discussed this and will do whatever they decide, so I won't just repeat myself as I already said what I wanted and have nothing new to add, I just hope whatever you do it won't deter newbies and make them feel like they aren't being trusted so they need to be restricted. Cheers!!

 

[Riff Raff]

That's fine Riff, I'm just one lonely voice, which happens!!! I expect the 'staff' have discussed this and will do whatever they decide, so I won't just repeat myself as I already said what I wanted and have nothing new to add, I just hope whatever you do it won't deter newbies and make them feel like they aren't being trusted so they need to be restricted. Cheers!!

The thing is I do understand what you were saying and I respect your opinion, what I said was merely my own and not on behalf of anyone else.

 

[Lynch]

A lockout of the PM's / visitor messages sounds fair, too.

I have long been an advocate of this. I would also be a big fan of a hack that doesn't allow for personal profiles to be customized until they hit a certain post count (not sure if such a thing exists).