[Randman]

For the most part, I think spam is handled quite well on this site.

But, there's always room for improvement. It seems much of it comes in the very early morning, US time (nighttime in the rest of the world) so there's often a few hours before the file is locked up.

Why don't the mods have the ability to lock a spam thread? Or do they and it's the admins who ban the spammer?

Also, there was a suggestion by someone in one spammed thread about adding the lynx link to the list of verbotten words on this site as the majority of the spam links to that site. Or is there another way to further decrease the spam generated by that site?

[turtle777]

How about just automatically locking up any thread with *FREE* in the title ?

-t

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Randman

1. But, there's always room for improvement. It seems much of it comes in the very early morning, US time (nighttime in the rest of the world) so there's often a few hours before the file is locked up.

2. Why don't the mods have the ability to lock a spam thread? Or do they and it's the admins who ban the spammer?

3. Also, there was a suggestion by someone in one spammed thread about adding the lynx link to the list of verbotten words on this site as the majority of the spam links to that site. Or is there another way to further decrease the spam generated by that site?

1. So what? A response within a few hours is perfectly acceptable. Nobody here actually clicks the spam links. The most annoying thing are the spam-thread groupies who feel a need to pad their post counts by posting in those threads. Instead, they should just press the Report Abuse link so that when we check our email in the morning, we know that they are there. Most of the people who scream "spam!" in the threads don't even bother to report them!

2. Mods can lock threads within their designated forums, but nowhere else, and they cannot ban users. So, for example, a Power Mac moderator cannot close a Lounge thread.

Normally, the mods will close the thread, and if no admin sees it immediately (which is very often the case), they will IM one of us admins to finish the job.

If the post has been reported, then we will know about it sooner.

3. Perhaps, the lynx thing is not the big one — that would be the freethisandthat.com-style ones — and we have those blocked. Many of the links now go through "mini URL" sites, which we can't block because people use them for other stuff.

I really don't see it as big enough of a problem to go to too much more effort to prevent. Though I would love to find the people who run the freecrap.com sites (which tell people to post in forums!!) and bash their heads in. Or send Uncle Guido. Or at least leave a tofu fish wrapped in newspaper on the stoop.

[ghporter]

I agree that we could do more to fight spam. I've envisioned a technology that sends a high-powered electromagnetic pulse down the spammers' telephone lines, resulting in everything electrical in their home vaporizing-the "interesting" flash burns that result from this are a free byproduct.

As soon as I see spam in Networking, I kill it. But I only have rights within the Networking forum, so when I see it elsewhere, I report it. Somehow it seems like tooki is online about as long every day as my cats sleep, but he must have to hit the loo sometimes, so crap slips past him and the rest of us do our level best to slap it back down.

And since we're volunteers with these things called "lives," sometimes we don't have enough time to spend online preventing spammers from spackling the boards. We do get 'em pretty quickly though.

One note on banning/censoring the word "free," though. It is not a smart thing for two reasons. What about a thread in the Lounge on the form "Nelson Mandela is FREE!"? Oops! That wouldnt' work! And if we start blocking that spam, they'll just switch to "No Cost!" or "Gratis!" or some other terminology. It's better to hunt them down and kill their user accounts. Besides, everyone seems to have such fun decorating the spam threads! I'm waiting for someone to link a sound clip from Monty Python on one of them!