I realise that spammers are extremely irritating to most members of this site, making a post in a thread started by a spammer is a pointless exercise as it will only be deleted with the spam.

If you find spam rather than wasting your time making a soon to be deleted post it would be far more helpful if you could press the report button at the bottom of the post. This will alert the moderators and we will be able to delete the offending post with greater speed.

Thank you.

Agreed. It should be noted however that when a post is deleted, it's not deducted from the user's post count. People post in spam threads just to pad post counts, as far as I know.

And while that's of dubious morality, technically the entire Community Board does the same thing.

That is quite possible, however people that do that should be aware that such posts are themselves considered spam. From the forum rules:



I'm of a more charitable disposition however. I believe that some of those that post in these threads are demonstrating their displeasure or think that pointing out spam with a post helps identify it. However they frequently make it harder rather than easier for the moderators to find spam.

Sometimes, it's good to vent in spam threads.

sometimes, a lot of activity goes on in spam threads ,, knowing that what you say is going to be deleted soon anyway , so people do vent, yes .. and maybe make a few risque jokes they wouldnt normally do ...so they do serve some purpose , , but nobody really takes much notice of the original spam message .

The message we're trying to get across is to hit the 'report' button for spam threads, whether or not you intend to post a reply to it, so that we can remove the spam thread as soon as possible.

I've seen some people post responses like "a moderator is going to delete this" or "where are the mods when you need them", instead of actually reporting it. Clicking the report button takes literally seconds and really helps us to remove forum spam fast.

maybe if you said it'd get deleted in 15 mins rather than straight away would help , just to give the spam thread ventors a chance to do what they have to do rather than imminent mid sentence death ...
and also, because these spam threads are so heavily used , people are reluctant to report it and cause others to be cut off mid sentence etc, but if there was a 15 min or even 5 min warning, then people would happily say , ok, thread is reported, you have 5 mins to say what you want to say and then mods will be deleting thread .

Since this is a spam thread please come visit me at the grotto! Click on the link below to visit!

truethat...

Rahl, I think you may have missed the point. The spams that are being refered to, as far as I'm aware, are mostly porn or how to obtain drugs, both of which are unsuitable for the family environment that UM is trying to maintain. There are many young members that don't need to be exposed to this.

Well no more can be done by the administators of the site above providing the report button and relying on people to use it, the question seems to be how best to faciltate people into actually using this report , evidently it is not working as it ought, hence this thread , so my suggestion are there as an idea as a way to maybe increase the likelihood the report button will be pressed. In an ideal world, of course all pornographic spam would be immediately zapped in milliseconds , but its not an ideal world we live in and we still need to rely on the report function .

The idea , regardless of the type of spam it is, is to increase the chance the report button is pressed , you cannot get on a high horse and preach about the evils of certain types of spam and then go and cherry pick the type of spam that you think ought to be treated differently , because it wont, all spam needs to be treated with a universal method , and that method is what is under discussion here .

It seems to me you are the one on the high horse, Rohl...these are not my rules.

The rules are simple... No spam.

These spammer register just to post adverts which are frequently totally unsuitable for a site like this.

The point being made here is that there are members of this site that will post a comment such as "where is a moderator when you need one?" but who can't actually be bothered to report the spam themselves.

If these people are so irritated by spam that they feel the need to express their displeasure the least they can do is help the moderators remove it by taking a few seconds to report it.

The rules on spamming are non-negotiable.

i dont see why people feel better about themselves by having a higher post count than someone else. quality over quantity people...

ok, so if I see a spam, I'll hit the report button. Veddy easy stuff. Only, I don't ever recall running into spam whilst perusing the threads.

Spam is very rare to my knowledge, I have only seen one thread.

Actually, I find posting in spam threads theraputic... I actually don't care about my post count. (As Lel will tell you, I was disgruntled about a grats thread about whatever number I reached.. meh, *who cares*)

But hey, if posting cute kitties and being silly is a nono in spam threads then fine. *shrugs* No more of it.

If only! Spam is very common and some of it is vile. The fact you see so little of it shows what a good job the moderators do .



If it makes you feel better carry on, but if you could hit the report button as well it would be very helpful.

Something I should have said in my first post:

Thank you to all those members that do report spam and other problems. It helps the moderators immensely.

Tillghast, Trust us UM gets spammed . As you are aware it's one of the largest forums on the web with a very large user base, it's spammers paradise for free advertising... It's just that we, the Mod team are very quick and very good at deleting and spotting them before most of the regular users ever see such.



The problem is SC the longer the spam thread is on the board the more hits the link to the site is going to get. By posting on the thread it keeps it up for that bit longer which in turns promotes the spammers site. Not only that but as has been said most of these sites are illegal and alot nasty in content. Not what you want anyone seeing let alone the younger members.
It would be much faster to hit the report button and get these cheeky irritating twerps out of the forum and stop them sponging Um of bandwidth and advertising purposes.

I really havent seen much of it myself YET!
But I do agree with this! i hate nasty spamming it's nonsense.
So YES click the report button

I've logged on to UM, clicked on "New Posts" and found spam threads on the 4th page.

I might post something sarcastic once in awhile but I always report. "Girty the squealer" aka "the tattle-tale", that's me according to some.

Have you considered configuring it so that people can't post links for the first 10 posts or something? I've seen an invision mod around somewhere that does that. Alternatively, you can set it so that peoples first post has to be in new members introduction before they can post elsewhere. Just a few ideas

Restricting access the forum is not really a solution, we don't want to penalise the vast majority of genuine new members for the sake of a small handful of spammers.

There will be additional anti-spammer options available in the next version of Invision Board, and due to the closeness of it's release it wouldn't be worth implementing any modifications to that end at the moment anyway.

Oooh top. Didn't know IBP 2.2 had extra spam security, I'll have to look that up. I hope they improve the JCAPTCHA response, then again I hate those things cause I can never tell whether it's a 0 or a o if they don't put a line through it

I believe the CAPTCHA is being improved upon in 2.2

Reporting spam is fun, you just click the report button, write spam in the little box and low and behold it is gone within a few moments. It is like magic, makes me feel all tingly inside.

I have the same feeling when I delete the little blighters.

Sometimes it disappears in a matter of seconds.

The mods are on top of things around here...

We do our best, but we are greatly helped by those that report these rat bags.

I am that snitch.. I have reported loads of spammers here on UM most rrecent this evening a member spammed 3 different topics, I remember one spammer ran wild through the forums.. it was probably quicker to ban the member first then clean up the mess after..

I hate spammers, my email box gets about 500/600 each day.

I hate spammers, too...especially the pervs. I don't hesitate to report them.

Yeah yeah, I know I am necroposting. I just have to say that I really appreciate the Admin and the Mods here. They do a wonderful job of getting rid of spam and keeping the peace. I may not have a very high post count but I read every day. I have only run across one thread that would have qualified as spam and when I hit my back button it was already gone. Thanks guys (and gals) you do an awesome job here!

I spotted Irish slipping you a couple of 100 for posting that thank you to the Mods and the Admin.

I got to get the money to updrade my Interent speed from somewhere don't I?

I think you should juse close. The threads. Simple as that. ^^

Then i will spam this so waspie will close his thread.

Just closing the threads would leave the spam readable. The spammer would get what they want and this site would be full of adverts for stuff no one wants.



It doesn't work like that. The spam get deleted and the spammer banned.

Did Please_Explain just admit to spamming?

Eyes ban button..................

Ok. Whatever makes you guys most happy.

In all my years here, I never even noticed the Report Button. (Slaps himself hard).

^

I always report the crap spam threads. If there is time, then I'll leave a little sarcastic reply. It isn't often though - the mods are way too fast.

The sarcastic replies are a total waste of everyones time. They will be deleted along with the rest of the thread. The spammer will not bother reading it (they will have moved on to spam somewhere else, if they are not a spambot any way) and all you are really doing is increasing your post count. Posts made to increase post counts ARE spam.

This was the point of my very first post in this thread.

aww, you didn't have to be so mean.

I would have expected a mod to have a bit more respect.

Post counts are irrelevant, veteran members should know this. And as long as the thread is reported along with the comment, what's the harm?

It's a legitimate point and not disrespectful in any way, posting a response to a spammer won't achieve anything because the thread will be removed shortly afterwards; not even the original spammer will see what was written.

Unless the thread takes a while to get removed, the only person who will see your post is you.