Lets talk about Spammers

[NeverBeg]

I know I havent posted in a while here, mainly been busy with the site that has pretty much taken control of my life. I have recently been bombarded by worthless spammers coming onto the boards and promoting their affiliate deals and their websites like they think that it is ok.

If one thing pisses me off more than anything involving this business, it is worthless spammers. These people have absolutley no lives, and are merely wastes of space in this world. Most recently I spent about a good 2-3 hours on my boards, constantly deleting peoples spamming threads, and banning their IP adresses. They never give up, they are leaches, that try to suck the life out of your site.

I have taken initiative and helping to minimize the problem of spammers, I now have a "close-to-full-time" mod stuff that can help me out and widdle away the pieces of crap.

I was wondering other people's experience who run message boards / forums on their site. Has it been a major problem for you? What actions do you take in making sure this happens as infrequently as possible? Or if you want to just "shoot off" about how much spammers are a pain, please do that as well. I look forward to reading responses.

[Nick]

Two things:

A) Simple script that will ban and remove a users post on clicking.
B) Enforce your rules and make sure people know that if they don't stick to them, you will show them the door.

[adioking]

asdfa

[Nick]

I've used that for a long time - works like a charm

[AceHigh Pino]

Yea NB, I've noticed that a lot on your site as of late. It seems that the more your site has blown up, the more it has attracted other inconsiderate people posting their own affiliate deals. It can be a huge pain in the ass when people do this, and I normally deal with it on a warning system basis. I don't necessarily ban them right off the bat, but I do delete the thread they start, PM/email them a warning, and if it happens again then of course I give them the permanent boot.

I know if I was in your shoes I would be extremely upset, because at a site that's as unique as yours, and with as many new threads that pop up every few minutes -- it can be hard to monitor all the spam junkies. I know it upsets me personally as well, mainly because I pay good dollars to promote sites and other forums on your site every month...so to see people trying to pull off these spam posts can really get my blood boiling at times. But as you said in your post, you pretty much have a full-time staff of great Mods there, so I know things like that will always be eliminate promptly. Good post sir.

[NeverBeg]

Yea thats the thing that makes it even more frustrating. The fact that I am working for these paid advertisers who do in fact pay good money to put their deals in front of my members. Therefore it makes it that much more important to make sure that the spam is taken care of immediately.

I have considered switching from phpbb, and am still considering it. I would be interested in that sweet spam killer software though.

[Jeremy]

I think the best thing you could do right now is go to VBulletin and get rid of phpbb. There is really no good case not too.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by NeverBeg

Yea thats the thing that makes it even more frustrating. The fact that I am working for these paid advertisers who do in fact pay good money to put their deals in front of my members.

I have considered switching from phpbb, and am still considering it.

You can't be a serious forum owner unless you use vbulletin. Simple as.

Just ask Jeremy, after I got him to convert

[Jeremy]

It took Nick about a year to get me on Vbulletin. And kudos to him for being so persistent. It really is the best software on the market and worth every penny.

Damn........if only I could get rid of the few remaining phpbb and IVB boards I have running. Every morning I wake up and they have not been hacked is a good morning.

[Rice]

NB, make sure you have good staff helping you with keeping profiles and posts clean. Spam software is an option, but I think a steadfast group of mods can accomplish a lot. Also, you can implement a points system on users, so that other members can rate whether their post was noteworthy or a waste of space, then your members are able to take an active role in keeping the community clean without having admin rights.

Good luck.