A Plea to the Forum Administrators

pied_piper · Post by **pied_piper** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 8:22 am

The spam postings have really gotten out of control.

This morning, I counted more than 50 spam postings under every category. As of the time of this posting, the moderators have removed them, but it's time for the Fluteland administrators to do something to stop spammers. It is really ruining the experience for all legitimate members. I fear that it will drive away members to other Flute forums that are properly managed to limit spam.

This is a plea to the administrators to PLEASE change the forum settings to require that every new member's first 10 messages must be approved before appearing on the forum. This can be accomplished by enabling message approval for the "Newly Registered Users group". This simple change should drastically reduce or eliminate the mass bombardment of spam messages. I'm sure that many of the valid forum members would be willing to assist with this by serving as message approvers for new members. I hereby volunteer to assist with this duty.

As indicated at the bottom of the forum pages, this forum is powered by phpbb forum software. The phpbb support forum has a message that details this and additional steps that administrators can take to reduce spam. PLEASE READ IT AND IMPLEMENT IT!

Preventing Spam in phpBB 3.0.6 and Above
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=1861645

If the Fluteland forum is an older version of phpbb that does not support these features, I further urge the administrators to upgrade to the latest version so that these measures can be implemented. I realize that it may take some time to accomplish this, but agreement to begin these changes would be most welcome.

As a show of support for this proposal, I urge the members of this forum to reply with your message of concurrence with these proposals.

cflutist · Post by **cflutist** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 9:21 am

Yes, I concur with pp. The spam has gotten out of control lately. I find it to be very annoying.

Phineas · Post by **Phineas** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 11:24 am

pied_piper wrote:The spam postings have really gotten out of control.

This morning, I counted more than 50 spam postings under every category. As of the time of this posting, the moderators have removed them, but it's time for the Fluteland administrators to do something to stop spammers. It is really ruining the experience for all legitimate members. I fear that it will drive away members to other Flute forums that are properly managed to limit spam.

This is a plea to the administrators to PLEASE change the forum settings to require that every new member's first 10 messages must be approved before appearing on the forum. This can be accomplished by enabling message approval for the "Newly Registered Users group". This simple change should drastically reduce or eliminate the mass bombardment of spam messages. I'm sure that many of the valid forum members would be willing to assist with this by serving as message approvers for new members. I hereby volunteer to assist with this duty.

As indicated at the bottom of the forum pages, this forum is powered by phpbb forum software. The phpbb support forum has a message that details this and additional steps that administrators can take to reduce spam. PLEASE READ IT AND IMPLEMENT IT!

Preventing Spam in phpBB 3.0.6 and Above
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=1861645

If the Fluteland forum is an older version of phpbb that does not support these features, I further urge the administrators to upgrade to the latest version so that these measures can be implemented. I realize that it may take some time to accomplish this, but agreement to begin these changes would be most welcome.

As a show of support for this proposal, I urge the members of this forum to reply with your message of concurrence with these proposals.

Yeah, about 10PM every night, the spam battle begins. Sometimes it is the same user over and over again. I can do nothing but remove the massages because I cannot remove or ban users.

I have no idea why someone would think they can sell jerseys and porn on a flute message board...LMAO!

Classitar · Post by **Classitar** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 12:14 pm

From what I could find out, the spammers can be paid in two ways:

Paid per click - needless to say - don't click on their links

Paid per sales generated from their links

Another benefit to spammers may be that the more links on the web to the sites they represent, the better their search ratings become

Today we had 4 spammers all representing the same 2 commercial websites, so in this case they were a team of individuals either employees of the sites or "contracted" by the sites.

If you look it up, spamming can be very lucrative

cflutist · Post by **cflutist** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 12:33 pm

Can you block their IP addresses?

I know my hubby does that with his webserver because these guys keep hotlinking to his to retrieve emoticons. I guess there are logs that show that?

Classitar · Post by **Classitar** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 1:21 pm

As Phineas mentioned, the moderators can't do that

Post by **admin** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 1:32 pm

Temporarily, admin will be approving each new board member. Unfortunately, this board doesn't allow for just new posts to be approved but we can at least approve the members. Most spammers won't wait to be activated so this should be a good approach.

fluteguy18 · Post by **fluteguy18** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 7:34 pm

Well... seeing as how there are currently 11 spam postings right now, if you want/need any more help, I'd be glad to lend a hand. At least new members have to be approved now. I hope that works.

pied_piper · Post by **pied_piper** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 8:29 pm

New member approval is a nice thought but I doubt it will stop them. The postings tonight appear to be the same or at least coincidentally VERY similar to those from last night and this morning. What will stop a person or group of people from signing up for multiple accounts, waiting for approval, and then dumping on the board again?

If member approval doesn't stop them, perhaps as FG18 suggested, how about adding more of us as moderators to help police the board and remove the spam as soon as it hits? I'd be glad to help with that.

Phineas · Post by **Phineas** » Wed Sep 29, 2010 9:15 pm

I still would like to know what happened to the Flute FAQ

pied_piper · Post by **pied_piper** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 7:19 am

Well this is working well...

9:15 AM and probably more than 100 new spam messages.

I guess the word is getting around that this place is an easy mark...

MissyHPhoenix · Post by **MissyHPhoenix** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 8:07 am

I'm willing to help in any way I can. I hate these SPAM things.

fluteguy18 · Post by **fluteguy18** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:22 am

Four more.

fluteguy18 · Post by **fluteguy18** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 9:26 am

Oops! Spoke too soon. They're on here right now posting spam.

asoalin · Post by **asoalin** » Thu Sep 30, 2010 11:56 pm

Hey, I've gotten some great deals on sneakers thanks to the spammers! haha

Isn't it crazy that there are people out there somewhere who have to tell people they "spam" for a living? I wonder what euphemism they call themselves...maybe "digital media marketing specialist" or "online consumer researcher". What does a spammer looks like...greasy-haired, middle-aged guy with thick glasses, chugging caffeine all night in his basement? Nerdy college kid with a chip on his shoulder? Enlighten me, oh mysterious spammers!

Okay, okay, in all seriousness...I do agree with pied_piper. If the spamming continues I think forum activity (for actual members) will decrease. Bad news for sure! I wish there was a spammers forum so we could all go there and post a bunch of flute stuff!

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A Plea to the Forum Administrators

A Plea to the Forum Administrators

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