Lots of spam showing up here

[tgonhawk1]

... and you guys are doing a pretty good job of staying on top of it.

 

But removing it after the fact is not as good as stopping it in the first place.

 

The only sure-fire thing I know -

and it does make more work for you up front,

but you already have spam removal work -

is this:

Make it so that the first few posts by any new user of the forum are moderated.
That means they have to be approved by someone rather than going directly to the forum.

While this does mean some posts will not appear immediately (which might confuse

and bother a new user or potential user), it also solves the spam problem.

 

If the spammers know it's in use, they give up.

And it is most likely that all the recent spam is from the same source,

even as it appears to come from 'different users'.

 

So give this some thought whether the possible advantages or disadvantages carry more weight.

 

 

P.S.

 

If you *don't* solve this problem somehow ... you will eventually have a forum

that is of no use at all ... the spammers will simply take over, and drown out the "real" content,

and then there is a snowball effect, as the real users just stop even reading it (and posting)

because it becomes a complete waste of time sorting through the dross.

 

I have seen it happen before.

Edited August 9, 2015 by tgonhawk1

[Cody R.]

We're aware of this - we clean the forums several times a day and try different captcha related options to prevent automated accounts. We opt not to do new user moderation as it's frustrating for some customers to have to wait for us to verify their account before they can post (we may go this route eventually). It also adds some overhead on determining which users are legitimate and which are merely spam related.

[tgonhawk1]

> it's frustrating for some customers to have to wait for us to verify their account ...

 

A middle ground is:

allow them to post right away ... but their first few POSTS are moderated ...

meaning they don't show up in the viewable forum until someone looks at them.

 

And since:

> we clean the forums several times a day ...

You are already putting in time to watch the forum, and if there is a "notification of post needing moderation"

function, it would actually REDUCE your workload, as you'd only have to act when there actually is a new post.

 

And also, if the spammers realize this, they will stop and go elsewhere.

 

As long as you make it clear to new users what's going on, I'm sure most will understand.

 

Looking at the Members list at this time, of the last 6 to join (not counting any already removed),

3 are spammers, with (5 + 1 + 1 = ) 7 posts among them.  The other 3 have not posted.