Spammers

[WingAdmin]

Thanks to everyone who has been so great in spotting and reporting the spammers who get on here from time to time. Their newest tactic is to hire people who register normally, put a link to their crappy spam site in their signature, then post inane and stupid messages that purport to contribute to the conversation. Because this site ranks fairly high on Google, this gets links to their site in Google.

I can't catch them all quickly, but you guys have been doing a terrific job. Once I am made aware of them, I kill their account (and messages), and ban them from registering more accounts.

So thanks, guys!

If you DO see one of these questionable "spam" posts, just click the little exclamation mark in the triangle to report it.

[RoadRogue]

Will be happy to help eliminate these bloody spammers.

[Coder]

Just a thought on this one. I have admin'd on other forums using PHPBB in the past and I typically set it up so that new users couldn't create a signature until a specific post count was reached. Just did a quick search on this and found a post by Kevin Clark on the PHPBB site that explains how to do this.

Setting it for post approval means that a moderator will have to approve the post before it appears on the boards, although this may be a little labor intensive, but the lack of a signature, and even turning off the ability to upload images or add URLs to the post would severely cramp the spammers style

Hope that helps!

Davey

[trike lady]

I have no problem reporting these people all they'll do is ruin a forum.
I belong to a GW forum where the spammers are out of control and no one puts an end to it, don't want to see that happen here.
I hardly post over there because of it.
It's up to us to report spam and strive to have the nicest Goldwing Forum on the net.

[WingAdmin]

Just a thought on this one. I have admin'd on other forums using PHPBB in the past and I typically set it up so that new users couldn't create a signature until a specific post count was reached. Just did a quick search on this and found a post by Kevin Clark on the PHPBB site that explains how to do this.

Setting it for post approval means that a moderator will have to approve the post before it appears on the boards, although this may be a little labor intensive, but the lack of a signature, and even turning off the ability to upload images or add URLs to the post would severely cramp the spammers style

Hope that helps!

Davey

I had really not wanted to institute any kind of restrictions for new users, because I know it just annoys me when I join a forum, and makes me not want to return...but the incidence of this "signature spam" is increasing so much that I've decided to do exactly as you mentioned, restricted the addition of signatures until users have posted ten messages. Hopefully that will kill it.

[Coder]

Woot! Got my post count over 10 just in time ))) That would have been awkward, my signature being removed due to my own suggestion (^-^)

[WingAdmin]

Woot! Got my post count over 10 just in time ))) That would have been awkward, my signature being removed due to my own suggestion (^-^)

It's only applied to new users from this point forward, so no worries.