If VB was more...sophisticated we could install a 'bot' filter which would prevent the mass spammers from getting in at all (Without using the IP ban). But we don't have that option.
Yesterday I logged in took a quick look saw 3 spammers banned them within 30 seconds, deleted their posts and nobody even had a chance to read what they posted. That is also the way the rest of the mods do their jobs, sometimes when nobody is here then 70's G or Connie will let us know by reporting it(they have sent us more reports than anyone else) and then the first mod here removes it.
Magic and I don't intend on putting anything in place that would make a new arrival feel unwelcome.
We appreciate your passion TS, but there is no simple way to stop spammers they are clever so even if we put massive security measures in place some will always get through. The horde of robots filling up the visitors box are IP banned, they can't do anything but that also eliminates anyone from that 'area code' from joining the forum.
Actually LG, that lunatic woman with the links from yesterday, her crap was still viewable to all members several hours after she had first posted it.
In my view spammers like her are encouraged to return to forums such as this by the fact that her links remain on view sometimes for at least several hours, and people like her love the fact that the moment they join they can post as many links and crap as they like, instantly. If she’d wanted to she could have taken a couple of hours and posted 100 links on 30 different sections of the forum yesterday, and until somebody like you had logged in to ban her, then there’s nothing that can be done to stop her, and so she very quickly achieved the publicity to her website which she sought. So she must have been very encouraged and delighted that (I assume) some members probably even clicked on all of her links….I noticed she was logged on to the forum during the afternoon whenever I was here, so she was just sitting there I presume watching the hours tick by during the day whilst more and more people read all her garbage, and even linking to her ‘rock’ site.
If there was a total prohibition on all links, for a certain minimum number of posts or whatever, then common sense dictates that they would just leave us alone and they would go elsewhere – and joining here at all would be futile. So far we have been lucky that all the spam links have been to relatively safe and banal sites, but as things stand there's absolutely nothing stopping perverts and serious crackpots or whoever from doing exactly what she did yesterday if they ever found us, which is my main concern and why I personally believe this is a much bigger issue than some other people seem to be making out...there's a bigger picture here.
So her links still got several hours of free publicity even though she was eventually banned…and that’s really all that the average forum spammer needs or wants, she’d already achieved what she’d set out to do long before she was ever banned, so as far as she’s concerned, it was a job well done!
I’m disappointed (and very surprised to be honest) that it seems no action at all is going to be taken.... despite the fact almost 70% of the people who voted clearly indicated that they want at least some sort of action to be taken to try to deter spammers…only two people (13.3% of the poll) voted to “do nothing”.