Just in case any of you are wondering, the spam is just as bad, if not worse than ever. If any of it does slip through, please report it, and reply with a simple 'Reported.', so we aren't spammed with a load of messages. Love and cuddles, the Mod team.
Yepper - worst I can remember it being atm - 126 threads waiting for me this morning, 3 or 4 were non-spam. It's a shame we don't want lots of lovely fake chinese goods, we'd be laughing!
Usually I log in at around 7.45am and clear out 150 spam. Then I log in around noon and clear out another 50. In the late afternoon another 20 or so and same in the evening. As an experiment I systematically banned about 50 spammers to see if that would make a dent, but they simply create new accounts. I can see about five registering right now as I type this.
This subject comes up time and time again, so often that I suspect things haven't changed re signing up since I joined this delightful arena. But I can't actually remember the process re signing up and I can't check without flouting the multiple accounts rule So if I may, a suggestion. When a new victim devotee decides to join the forum, in the "Yaaaay you're a member " email or PM (if one is even issued - can't remember, and if it isn't it should be!) why not put right at the top, after the "Yaaaay ... enjoy your stay", a passage along the lines that the first 10 posts are moderated, this takes time - usually within XX hours - and is done for the good of the forum to keep spam at bay so please be patient and understanding? For those who care to read it they'd know what's what and it'd save all you mods justifying your time and activities to people. For those who don't bother reading it, any thread like this would probably end up with one reply to the OP - YOU DIDN'T READ YOUR WELCOME EMAIL/PM Other forums do something similar, i.e. a welcome to the forum communication, so why not BT with such a message?
We are trying to get the sign-up process modified. This takes some forum software geekery however, so may take some time. Beyond that, it's in the forum Rules and FAQ's which new members are expected to read. Geeks should not need spoon-feeding information.
One might think so, this and threads like it prove otherwise Just trying to be constructive/pro-active and avoid some of the
No, he's talking about the mods and staff a collective hive mind. Carrie: Suggestions and thoughts are always appreciated, even if they're not implemented.
You mean, a soulless collective of automatons controlled by a nefarious hive mind intent on world domination? Naah.
Why is there so much spam getting through lately? Is it the old make an account and not post for a while trick?
It's either a bug in the vB software or a mod getting slightly careless and approving occasionally. What gets through is <0.5% though, rest assured.
I certainly note that there can be a considerable time (up to a few days) between registering and posting. Sometimes either process seems to go on for days. This makes me wonder whether the spammers are bots on infected machines that can only do their thing when the host machine happens to be turned on.
How long should we wait before reporting a post again? Only that this has been sitting around for 3 days despite being reported. I understand things can quite easily slip trhough the nets, no worries there, just that when they do, how long should we wait to avoid reporting something twice in the same moderation que?