SPAM
We're getting an awful lot on this site lately arn't we!! :evil:

Not a lot, I delete adverts from non-regulars as soon as I see em and delete the obvious spamming new members (ie those with links to porn/medicine/etc sites) every couple of days or so. Just a minor irritation really.

There does seem to be a lot of spammers in the main forum at present!

I suspended the "advert" forum to new posts this morning to see if it would cut down on them. So far I think there have been less, but it's hard to tell as I don't know how many others are deleting.

Should add, I understand that Forumer are working on something to reduce spamming. They did -*test*-('") something on our server but I think it was causing problems so they took it off again. I'm sure they'll resolve it eventually.

i probably delete 5 to 8 spam messages a day, every day, amost entirely from the 'business cards' section, and 99% are porn or drugs. i've deleted one drugs advert from the main section today. BD locked the business cards section because its getting on our tits, if they just sod off then thats ideal, but if they start spamming the main board in the numbers they do in the 'business cards' section then we'll have to re-think.

Just had a look at the Forumer support forums. It seems that the anti spam thing is still installed but that it only prevents "bots" not real live people registering. There is a suggestion that if we disable new accounts for a few days they may go away. I might try that, it's not as if we're attracting a huge number of new posters anyway.

i've just deleted another one from the main section. i consider myself a collosal pervert, yet even i was offended... :lol:

lol Contrary to advice on the Forumer support forum, it doesn't appear that you can disable new registrations. I shall persevere though.

Ok, new tactic. I will review the new names on a daily basis and then attempt to ban the spamming ones. This can be done by banning the names, email addresses or IP addresses. Might work, might not.

I have deleted a few of these too. I also do it whenever I find one ... but I have left one in place so that Sparty's reply to it may be enjoyed by all! One of us can do the deed in the morning.

without wishing to sound like a complete window-licker, is there any way to make the whole banning/blocking process easier/quicker? its dead easy to remove posts, but banning the poster and IP is a bit of a 'mare. more porn/shlong enlargement on the main page....

It is a long winded process RM. There is a "prune users" button which allows you to automatically remove users who haven't posted within a time frame and I've been using that, but it's only so much use. Last night I started blanket banning certain email servers used by spammers, for instance *@mail.ru & *@liveteenxxx.com Someone posted a list of 50 or 60 of these on the support forum, so I've started with those last night and since then we've had two spammers register, both now deleted. I'll try this for a while and see how it goes.

Today, I have removed 4 or 5 spammer accounts and added a couple more email domains to the banned list. We usually get at least a dozen a day, often more. So I think this may be working.

Hopefully, when it comes to banning an IP address, you'll remember that AOL provides all of it's members with the same proxy IP and so banning that one may result in several legit members being locked out. I recall Stephen tried that on the old ST and blocked over half the membership until he realised how it worked. Mind you, most of us were later kicked off by the Stasi anyway.