Pointless topics and posts

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Frank EU
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Pointless topics and posts

Post by Frank EU »

OPEN LETTER

Hi Brent,

I have noticed that the forum is pretty much under constant ‘attack’ by really pointless and silly posts. These posts are dumped onto the forum by new members, mostly with funny names. Some posts feature a link, if you click on that links, which I once did, the spyware and virus detectors go ballistic sometimes. I do realize that it is totally up to me, or any other forum visitor to go click on a link, but if one gets infected with a virus, they still may think that the forum should not have allowed that link in the first place.

I have been following this for some time and I cannot express how much I dislike this sort of ****. And I indeed agree that there have always been idiots joining any random forum for all wrong reasons, and that it will continue to happen, for junk mail reasons.

Isn’t there, on top of the methods you already have in place, a way where you can legally act against this, where you can cover your ass to protect the good reputation the forum has and needs to maintain? Yes, in fact I believe there is a way to cover yourself, it consists of the legal option where you send out a standard ‘welcome’ letter to any new member in which letter you say ‘’hi, welcome’’, explain the rules and also drop some statements?

Like for example that you reserve all the rights to not only block abusers, as you already do, but also will procecude or fine any sender for any ‘advertisement’ posted on the forum? Those idiots link to a commercial website and any website owner can be tracked and traced –thus contacted and fined.

I do not have to tell you how to find the new members, you are the moderator, and all new members knock your digital door so that is easy.

If you indeed are going to send out some sort of welcome letter, with rules, a legal waiver/warning and all that, you also should update the current rules as published on the forum. As you can see yourself, some ‘members’ join and than be inactive for weeks before they suddenly send out their junk. Current members never got your welcome letter so they may be getting away if you do not update the current rules.

I realize that you must be investing a lot of time, energy and means to just keep up with the new posted posts and to remove any stupid pointless advertisement.
It may very well be an idea to send out that ‘waiver’ or ‘welcome’ letter to reduce the pain in your office and save energy, time and money all in one go.

Just an idea,

Regards,
Frank

Latest Example;
Username: Hoppi0021 Joined: 10 Mar 2009 07:09
Last visited: 18 Mar 2009 18:18, which is exactly the date and time when he dumped his very first pointless post on the forum.
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Brent Deines
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Re: Pointless topics and posts

Post by Brent Deines »

It's a never ending battle Frank. We can send out all the letters we want and post all the rules we want, but the spammers can find ways to get around all of our blocks faster than the creators of the software can find ways to block them. I try to get to them as fast as I can and delete them, but unfortunately I don't always get to them before someone reads them. A word to the wise though, if the post doesn't make sense, don't click on any links in it, just click on the ! at the top right of the post to report it or send me an e-mail.

The only way I know of to stop this kind of thing is for us to physically activate every single membership. Some of the smaller boards do this, but most of the active boards do not. It is very labor intensive and in this "get it now" age people don't like to wait until the next day for approval, thy want it instantly, so I am very hesitant to do so.

I will try crank up the security a notch and see if that helps.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

PS - I'm moving this topic to the forum feedback forum.
Brent Deines
Delta Kits, Inc.
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