Pauline
Forums Admin
‘Tis the season for spammers. The obvious ones are easy. They post several times with links to sites selling passports or something. Their posts never go public and I delete them all with one click.
But some of them work harder. They do several posts looking like they are taking part in the forums, then they post with a link to the site they are being paid to promote. I can usually tell from the first post, but if I think they may be real, I set them so they can post but I review every post. When they get to the post with the link, I ban them and their earlier posts stay on the forum but their member name is stroked through.
Sometimes they post in a thread started by someone that was a spammer months or years ago - probably them. Then I realise that others in that thread were spammers.
My favourite is when I ban them and they email to demand to be reinstated because they are a real person, so I apologise and un-ban them, then they never post again because, most likely, they were a spammer.
We don’t get that many. One every day or two. When I have a week with no spammers, I start to miss them. At least they show that the forums can be found on google, even if there is t much action this year.
But some of them work harder. They do several posts looking like they are taking part in the forums, then they post with a link to the site they are being paid to promote. I can usually tell from the first post, but if I think they may be real, I set them so they can post but I review every post. When they get to the post with the link, I ban them and their earlier posts stay on the forum but their member name is stroked through.
Sometimes they post in a thread started by someone that was a spammer months or years ago - probably them. Then I realise that others in that thread were spammers.
My favourite is when I ban them and they email to demand to be reinstated because they are a real person, so I apologise and un-ban them, then they never post again because, most likely, they were a spammer.
We don’t get that many. One every day or two. When I have a week with no spammers, I start to miss them. At least they show that the forums can be found on google, even if there is t much action this year.
