What's with all this spam rubbish we're getting here lately, mods, can't you block messages from these idiots?
they do as soon as they see it or it gets reported some days have 10 posts with links to **** on them
The trouble is this site is popular, the spammers software seeks out popular sites to post on, so it all our fault,
Other forums I go on suffer the same problem. Some even have the same spammers username. Thing is, it's a human who registers with the site, then once in automates the spamming process so spam posts will appear in quick succession.
The only real way to stop it, is for new members having to have their first post cleared by admin before it's posted.
I think SF Peter has already answered that in another post. SF say it puts off people from joining up then posting. Admin can't be on here 24/7 as SF are providing the forum free of charge (as are most other forums. Spam is kept fairly well on top of though.
They wouldn't need to be here 24/7 though, after hour new posts would have to wait until the following day.
so, having their first posts moderated and checked would put folks off joining - does that mean the number of new members would go down from 10 a month to 9 a month ? but there'd be no spam
New members wouldn't know until they have written the post and pressed post, it would then come up, " this post will appear once it has been cleared by admin, all subsequent posts will go straight to site".
Hi Thank you for your comments. Please remember you only see spam posts that get though our automatic spam filters. Even more is stopped before any posting is made. I could toughen up our filters and block new users posts to be checked before they are viewable. Doing this would prevent some unwanted posts being shown. However, this would also make the forum more difficult to use and less inviting to new members. Therefore there are no plans to hold and moderate new users posts. Please continue to report any spam or just ignore them. Peter
Thanks for your reply Peter, probably best for us to ignore them, they probably won't bother to keep posting if they see they're not getting any response!
I spent an idle few mins googlin' the what and whyfor of forum spambots, reading a l'il of Xrumer and the like. All in all, considering the welcoming ease the SF forum permits new members to sign-up and post, excepting the odd times when every thread is spammed, I kinda think admin are doing a proper grand job. I'll also add, I'd not trade jobs (even if I had one) with SF Peter for all the chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat, salt, water, modified potato starch, sugar and sodium nitrite in Tesco's.
I think the forum should have a 'Bin'. All forum members would have the ability to immediately bin a post if they think of it as spam. Moderators could peruse the bin when time allows, recycle if found not to be spam, and shoot the member that binned it. If spam, permanently delete it(and sort the spammers account). Members would be aware that erroneous or malicious binning would blight their own account, so most members would beware mucking about. Already, there is a Report Abuse button, in that context, there could also be a 'Report and Bin' for obvious tripe posts. Or summat like that. Mr. HandyAndy - Really
Handy,, Great idea... You could fill the bin with your posts then the mods would come round and shoot you.
Hi Big All We had that set up on the old forum. In which if three users reported a post it would be removed from public view. However we only had one occasion in which 3 people reported a post, and this is a time when there were posts with images and content a lot worse then someone trying to sell kitchens. It is still very rare for more than one person to report a post, before its removed. Just to let you know what its like on this side of the spam wall, over the weekend there were 12 users which posted spam which was removed later and the users banned. We blocked 37 users over the same period who were unable to post. Thank you all for your thoughts and ideas on this matter, and I continually review our anti spam settings to prevent as much as possible without impacting the use of the forum for all our members. Peter.
I notice on the registration page there is a CAPTCHA which has to be completed, but it is a very basic one and easy for bots to complete. I much prefer humanising questions. They are unique to different forums, and cannot be guessed with out human intervention. It kills bots completely. This is a mod I created, to give you an idea of what I mean:
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