Why the hell?

[BIGJOEY]

Why the hell are we being bothered with these spam postings, ads etc?

Can the owner of this site do something about them?

Whats the opinion of everybody here about them?

[Lucas88]

BIGJOEY...the moderators don't monitor the site 24/7. That's a little much to ask someone who is basically volunteering to begin with. They catch the spam as fast as they can and clean it up. It's pretty obvious which users are the spammers when they hit every forum. If you see something that's spam, hit the excalmation mark in the red and white triangle to the top right side of the message and flag it for them.

These spammers are persistent and good at what they do. They obviously don't have real lives to deal with. The moderators are pretty responsive on this forum if you just let them know what's happening.

[theseventhwave]

I agree with Lucas.

I absolutely LOVE this site and all of the wonderful authors. I am extremely grateful to the moderators for all of their hard work in keeping this site up and running. It certainly can't be easy keeping ahead of all the spammers (may his noodly appendage poke them in the eye) - and I am grateful that they do manage to keep the house relatively tidy.

;-)

[Username3]

I don't really mind, as long as the person is being punished because of this crime.

It's something that happens on every forum, and don't expect it not to happen ever again.

[BIGJOEY]

hell i will help mod the site and clean it out some if they need the help that is

[digger]

Originally Posted by Username3

I don't really mind, as long as the person is being punished because of this crime.

It's something that happens on every forum, and don't expect it not to happen ever again.

I just posted a story idea about that :-)

Seriously, if the uber-mod wants to designate a handful of responsible guys to crack down as spam appears then I say we do it. "Responsible" means the posse is only charged with attacking spam and doesn't use it's authority for any other moderator-like purpose.

[Paul1234566]

have to they that they do a good job on this site like this is the first spameers in ages

[CelticMuscle]

Why not something as simple as a moderator who each section who has the highest post count in that section moderates every post up until a poster has made 50 non spam posts, after that point that moderator then checks on that poster every so often until 150 good posts and then leaves him alone thereafter

[GoliathCA]

On top of that they post their spam in a thread where everyone's complaining about spam.

[xythan_shadow]

People like this need to be beat with a stick.

[growingbigger]

I'm an admin on a couple of other sites, and I'm looking at the boards every day to make sure there aren't any spammers posting and deleting posts and banning those that do. These guys really piss me off. I check this board nearly every day so if they need help moderating, I'd be glad to help as well.

[Kyrosan]

It's also a good idea to change your password from time to time...that's sometimes how spammers get in...they gain access to your account and start posting away like mad. Proper firewall, antivirus and antispyware software is also a must!

[Aielyn]

I just thought I'd point out that "popular58" is probably not a human spammer, just a spambot. And such spambots don't get through via people not changing their passwords - usually, it's a flaw in the forum code that allows the spambots to slip in.

That it has been 10 hours, and "popular58" still hasn't been sorted out, says that there's a problem in terms of moderation of the site. It isn't expected that people be online constantly, but the moderation team should be spread amongst multiple timezones, preferably including timezones outside America. Then, all the moderators should need to do is check the site two or three times a day each, and if there's, say, four moderators, that should pretty much ensure that no spam or other rule-breaking posts remain on the site for more than a couple of hours.

[nypup2train]

And, look. Here we are, a day later, and since I can't see whatever message you're talking about from this "popular58" I assume the issue's been taken care of.

Under 48 hours is not only an acceptable time frame for administrative response on an all-volunteer, goodness-of-their-own-hearts enterprise like this site, it's a COMMENDABLE response time.

(The remainder of this post is not directed to anyone in particular -- it's directed to EVERYONE who's a member of this site, in particular. Any similarities you detect between things I mention here and something you've posted in the past is simply your guilty conscience at work.)

Nobody cares if you moderate a forum somewhere else, or have a Yahoo group, or you're the King of the Internet, and you're on there every single day without fail cleaning up spam.

Nobody cares if you have spam-detection software looking over every message posted, ready to set off an air raid siren and wake you out of a sound sleep at 4 in the morning just because Somewhere... on the Internet... Someone! Might! Be! SPAMMING!

Nobody cares if you're willing to devote your every waking moment to patrolling this site for even the merest whiff of spam. The administrative overhead of enabling such an effort, for the people who actually make things go over here, would be orders of magnitude greater than the effort offloaded onto the spam-patrol. Never mind the political drama than invariably enters into any such all-volunteer effort.

Nobody cares if you're willing to personally screen every new account opened on the system, and subject the petitioning user to a rigorous Turing test until you're satisfied that they are not a spammer, have nothing but the best of intentions in seeking membership on this forum, and never forget to spell-check their text and verify all of their links before posting. Again, the overhead involved is far more significant than you imagine, especially considering...

IT'S NOT THAT MUCH DAMN SPAM!!!!!

Jeeeeezus. Just frickin' ignore it! It will be dealt with, in due time. In the meantime, the best way you can help is to simply notice it, grumble to yourself for a moment or two, report it if you feel so inclined (via the proper channels, meaning the icon provided in the upper right corner of each post on the site), and then Just. Bloody. Move. On!

Guarantee there's plenty of much-more-interesting non-spam content still ahead, starting with the very next message you get to. So... get to it!

[Lucas88]

Originally Posted by nypup2train

And, look. Here we are, a day later, and since I can't see whatever message you're talking about from this "popular58" I assume the issue's been taken care of.

Under 48 hours is not only an acceptable time frame for administrative response on an all-volunteer, goodness-of-their-own-hearts enterprise like this site, it's a COMMENDABLE response time.

(The remainder of this post is not directed to anyone in particular -- it's directed to EVERYONE who's a member of this site, in particular. Any similarities you detect between things I mention here and something you've posted in the past is simply your guilty conscience at work.)

Nobody cares if you moderate a forum somewhere else, or have a Yahoo group, or you're the King of the Internet, and you're on there every single day without fail cleaning up spam.

Nobody cares if you have spam-detection software looking over every message posted, ready to set off an air raid siren and wake you out of a sound sleep at 4 in the morning just because Somewhere... on the Internet... Someone! Might! Be! SPAMMING!

Nobody cares if you're willing to devote your every waking moment to patrolling this site for even the merest whiff of spam. The administrative overhead of enabling such an effort, for the people who actually make things go over here, would be orders of magnitude greater than the effort offloaded onto the spam-patrol. Never mind the political drama than invariably enters into any such all-volunteer effort.

Nobody cares if you're willing to personally screen every new account opened on the system, and subject the petitioning user to a rigorous Turing test until you're satisfied that they are not a spammer, have nothing but the best of intentions in seeking membership on this forum, and never forget to spell-check their text and verify all of their links before posting. Again, the overhead involved is far more significant than you imagine, especially considering...

IT'S NOT THAT MUCH DAMN SPAM!!!!!

Jeeeeezus. Just frickin' ignore it! It will be dealt with, in due time. In the meantime, the best way you can help is to simply notice it, grumble to yourself for a moment or two, report it if you feel so inclined (via the proper channels, meaning the icon provided in the upper right corner of each post on the site), and then Just. Bloody. Move. On!

Guarantee there's plenty of much-more-interesting non-spam content still ahead, starting with the very next message you get to. So... get to it!

I agree 100% with every thing you said, especially how 48 hours (actually, less than 24 hours in this case because this freak hit between noon and 1 p.m. yesterday, I think) is a commendable response time on a voluntarily moderated site, BUT...

...you MIGHT just think about a little less caffeine at 2:30 in the morning. You'll live longer.

[Aielyn]

Originally Posted by nypup2train

And, look. Here we are, a day later, and since I can't see whatever message you're talking about from this "popular58" I assume the issue's been taken care of.

Under 48 hours is not only an acceptable time frame for administrative response on an all-volunteer, goodness-of-their-own-hearts enterprise like this site, it's a COMMENDABLE response time.

While I appreciate your position, I stand by my opinion that there's a problem with the number of moderators.

I just looked at the data for that, and there are three administrators and one moderator (one admin is also marked as a moderator separately, for some reason). That's not a whole lot of people, especially given that neither TeknoDave nor optimusx has posted this year - if they're not active on the forums, they're not going to be around frequently enough to moderate.

And while I can't be certain, it looks to me like all four are Americans. As Lucas88 pointed out, the most recent spambot hit around 1 PM in his timezone, which is not exactly a time that many Americans would be visiting this site. On the other hand, I'm on the east coast of Australia, and the time here was around 2 AM. In Western Australia, it would have been 11 PM. If there was a moderator in Australia, chances are they would have seen it. Alternatively, if the moderators got into the habit of quickly checking the forums to see if there are any reports, these issues can be resolved without any significant burden on their time.

Note, by the way, that spam removal is only one of the purposes of moderators, and if spam can sit on the boards for more than 10 hours, so can, say, child porn photos and links, and flamewars can progress quite a long way in 10 hours.

I do agree, volunteer moderators shouldn't be expected to go overboard. But if they can't sort these sorts of issues out quickly, then the owner should be considering asking more people to be moderators.

[TeknoDave]

Aielyn, you got some balls.

You have no right to call us out on that. Just because you do not see the management team in the front of the store, does not mean we are not busy working in the back room.

When spam is reported, an email gets sent out to all moderators. We do have regular 40+hr jobs you know, so you have to respect that. Once a spam report is emailed, one of us gets to it the instant we have internet access.

Lucas put it best. Just bloody move on. Either just ignore it or leave the forum altogether. You have already rubbed several tenured members the wrong way.

[Lucas88]

Originally Posted by TeknoDave

Lucas put it best. Just bloody move on. Either just ignore it or leave the forum altogether. You have already rubbed several tenured members the wrong way.

Wish i could take credit because I'm right there with ya, but I was quoting nypup2train there.

BUT...good opportunity to more directly say thanks for the efforts in keeping this site running.

[nypup2train]

*sniff*

<rodney_dangerfield>

(J/k TDave, u know I think you're awesome.)