THoughts about controlling SPAM psotings...

[Trip]

A few thoughts about helping to curtail the increasingly obnoxious presence of spammers....

To help eliminate spam I think a newbie should have some posting restrictions.
You must have at least five posts to existing threads before you can start your own thread, create a signature, or do any attachments.

We can start a "Hello" thread for newbs to post to at first to say HI. :wave: There can be a standard format of sorts that we can encourage the newbs to use like: greeting, car, city/state/province :thmsup:

Not sure what the maintenance behind the scenes would be like for this. :D

I also thought that a 3-5 day waiting period before posting should be standard. If somone has been lurking and is interested in coming aboard, it shouldn't be a problem. But hopefully, a spammer that has to wait 3 days to get access will have moved on and won't bother waiting for their 3 day confirmation.

Anyone know of any means that works to help keep these bone spammers out of online communities?

[ericrwalker]

I think that's a good idea, but a lot of people might seek out this forum because they have a problem with their car. They just want to get it fixed, not get friendly with the rest of the forum.


I agree I hate spammers, it's getting bad in my email lately too.

A few thoughts about helping to curtail the increasingly obnoxious presence of spammers....

To help eliminate spam I think a newbie should have some posting restrictions.
You must have at least five posts to existing threads before you can start your own thread, create a signature, or do any attachments.

[SSMV6]

Having a 1 post minimum before being able to start a new thread will ward off 90% of the spammers we're getting here.

I don't really agree with the 3-5 day waiting period or a high minimum post before being able to start your own thread. We do get people who come here seeking advice for a certain problem with their cars and post a problem as their first few posts.

[BenjiBoy650]

These are JMO not speaking for anybody else

You must have at least five posts to existing threads before you can start your own thread, create a signature, or do any attachments.
Not sure that this is doable from this forum's software, kind of the same thing for the Classifieds. Also I think it might create a little bit of the same effect it has in classifieds...a lot of not very useful posts in long dead topics ie. ("Car looks sharp, later" in a 5 month old "got my new LX today" thread)

We can start a "Hello" thread for newbs to post to at first to say HI. :wave: There can be a standard format of sorts that we can encourage the newbs to use like: greeting, car, city/state/province :thmsup:
Ok. I've seen other forums with this as well. Anyone car start this thread if they feel like it.

I also thought that a 3-5 day waiting period before posting should be standard. If somone has been lurking and is interested in coming aboard, it shouldn't be a problem. But hopefully, a spammer that has to wait 3 days to get access will have moved on and won't bother waiting for their 3 day confirmation.
This might drive out some of those who have just a simple question, but also don't have the time or knowledge to continue posting and helping out people.

Overall I think the mods are okay with deleting spam as it comes up. It's not instant most of the time but it's decently quick. With the upcoming addition of several mods, we may also bump up some of the current ones to supermod so that threads can be covered much quicker (SSMV6 gets to this forum earlier in the day than I do, etc).

[princess]

Spam is icky! But this is ONE of the reasons I'd like us to have more mods... more to delete them!!

Being in CA when I open up the site at 7:30AM my time, there's usually a "reported post" about a spam. Someone has normally already dealt with it. :thmsup:

Unfortunately there's limits to the admin site...so I think we're just going to have to keep dealing with them ourselves. :dunno:

Some of the spam has been funny.... annoying, but funny. :)

Don't we already have a sticky thread about how & why to put info in the signature? Many still don't bother. I wish it was part of the registration somehow.

[EXLNavi]

Not sure that this is doable from this forum's software, kind of the same thing for the Classifieds. Also I think it might create a little bit of the same effect it has in classifieds...a lot of not very useful posts in long dead topics ie. ("Car looks sharp, later" in a 5 month old "got my new LX today" thread)

I've seen this in other vBulletin boards. It's possible.

I think they also restrict images and links until you have like 20 posts or so.

Overall I think the mods are okay with deleting spam as it comes up. It's not instant most of the time but it's decently quick. With the upcoming addition of several mods, we may also bump up some of the current ones to supermod so that threads can be covered much quicker (SSMV6 gets to this forum earlier in the day than I do, etc).


Yeah spam isn't a big problem here.

I haven't seen any pen15 or v1@gr@ type of spams, just the random person from V6P, TOV or some other board deciding to post a message or two here.

[gaviota]

I'm in lots of forums and spam isn't a problem in this one.

[stiller fan]

spam is fairly well controlled, only cause people, such as me, have time to report the spam postings..... then they are deleted by the mods... :wave: