Spam

[Red Adder]

I subscribe to a nationwide amateur footie news group and I've never seen anything on there - so it is possible to avoid such stuff though I don't know how they do.

As was commented earlier its quite easy to spot most spam but the image in the one I viewed as it wasn't obviously spam was especially graphic and unpleasant.

[Kitch]

I'm not daring to look at the thread title Animal Encounter
even though it purports to be from you Red Adder.

[Adrian]

It's a sheer waste of everyone's energy, not to mention very bad for the image of the forum, to have to spend time weeding out spam posts. Not enough is being done to stop the spammers registering. Registration should require at least a name and some other bona fides, whether it's an address, BOF number, SI number, or suchlike. Some forums ask people to explain why they want to join. Vetting people at the registration stage takes a bit of extra time for the moderators but saves a lot of time and bad experiences later.

p.s. To show my goodwill, I'm happy to do some registration-checking if you like. I'm also willing to go through a few letters of the alphabet, deleting unused spam accounts.

[mikey]

I'm not daring to look at the thread title Animal Encounter
even though it purports to be from you Red Adder.

I had a similar concern with 'Search for Teenage Talent' a few days ago.

[mappingmum]

Animal Encounter is OK

[Becks]

I think this thread just went a bit meta!

[Wayward-O]

So the spambot is complaining about the spam!

Looking for a possible solution that doesn't impose a large overhead on the moderators. Would it be possible to disable the capability to include photographs, signatures and links to other sites for all new accounts and then include a manual activation of these features once the bonafides of the person have been confirmed?

[Paul Frost]

It's easy enough to turn off all the features you suggested, but not so easy to make them selectively enabled.
Plus, how do you confirm someone is "bonafide", unless you insist on membership numbers to check against the database (which could be time consuming and they may not be paid up members), but then people wouldn't be able to hide behind a pseudonym.

[King Penguin]

Even if you take membership number and real name on registration for validation purposes they don't have to be publically displayed. A pseudonym could still be accepted for display purposes.
N.B. still allow non-members / the unregistered to view, just not to post.

[70plus]

Looks like they are arriving in droves. Pity we can't add them to the participation numbers ...

[AndyC]

One issue seems to be that people may access threads in order to report them (although why some threads get the numbers they do escapes me).
Is it possible for the IT guru's to change the icon or something on the message board to indicate that a thread has been reported as spam - meaning that no-one need access it?

[brooner]

I've stopped all registrations being automatically approved, which means that while we now get 200 extra e-mails per day, none of the newly registered spammers can post. This should stop most stuff getting through, although it does make it more difficult should any real users wish to sign up, hopefully I can spot and activate their accounts rather than deleting them...

There is a massive amount of registered spam accounts backlogged on the system, and a few of those might visit & post, but hopefully this shouldn't happen too often. I've been slowly working my way through deleting these while watching TDF...

[AndyC]

Brooner -that appears to be extreme dedication - I'm sure I speak for most of us when I thank you for your efforts

[rocky]

it does make it more difficult should any real users wish to sign up, hopefully I can spot and activate their accounts rather than deleting them...

Perhaps a sticky at the top of the forum with an email address to contact about genuine registrations?