Spam!

[ericb]

Hello everyone!

You may have noticed a few more spam messages the past few days. Hopefully not though. Before this week I was approving everyone's first post. This gave me the opportunity to delete accounts that were spamming our forum. It worked great for preventing spam. The down side was that new forum members posts were delayed in being published. A few days ago I turned off first post approval. It almost seems like the spammers knew it because we were getting more spam in the forum than when I was approving posts.

I'm going to leave off first post approval for a few more days to see hows things go, but, it looks like I'm going to need to turn it on again -- sorry to the future new forum members. However, to be clear when I do approve the first post it is only the first post, once a first post is approved the new member can post without approval.

Your thoughts are always welcome.

Cheers,
Eric

[ericb]

Hello Everyone,

I've turned first post approval back on. This means that when a user registers their first post has to be approved. This will allow me to block most all of the spam. The down side is that new users will have to wait a few hours for me to approve their post.

I'm beginning to think that the spam that is getting through is not from scripts, but, real people paid to post spam.

As always your thoughts are welcome.

Cheers,
Eric

[Jerson]

Hi Eric

A possibility you can explore is to have some regulars promoted to moderators who can help control spam. You need to open up their privilege for a soft-delete option.

Regards
Jerson

[ericb]

Hello Jerson,
I like your suggestion. I'm wondering though if I'm going to get help maybe help approving first posts would be better. I have a script that sends me an email anytime there is a new posts. I could expand the list of people that receive that email which should result is a fast response time.

If anyone is interested in helping out with each method please let me know.

Eric

[Jerson]

Hi Eric,

Count me in as a volunteer.

Regards

[orob]

I could help