Spam on the forum
Guys/gals,
I just wanted to ask you to refrain from responding to spam. I understand completely the sentiment, and I feel the same way about them. The reason I say this is because 0Db and I have to spot these and get rid of them quickly. It is easier to do when a regular posted has not replied to it - yes I know I see the original poster but I'm assuming when there are responses by regulars it's a legitimate question.
I don't always have the opportunity to log in every few hours, and then when I do I might only have a few minutes to look for violators in sometimes long list of unread posts. 0db listens through every music submission we have - let's face it, that's time consuming and audio can be more offensive than plain text (and he comments on all of them, too). Admin manages a multitude of web projects for Harman Music Group (not just Digitech), and does not have time to look for spam - she does ban each and every single spammer within hours if not minutes, and looks for patterns in their information to prevent more from coming.
That's all the staff we have here - for comparison, the Latin Wikipaedia has seven times as many, and they have fewer users and less posting.
It would make our jobs easier if the spam on the board go untouched, and - when it's possible to tell spam from the subject - unviewed. Some spam messages have linked images, which makes it possible for their web site to tell which boards they're getting hits from. It goes without saying that you should not click on any links in a message that looks like spam - same principle as with e-mail spam.
Thanks... and again, we are really sorry that it keeps happening.
I just wanted to ask you to refrain from responding to spam. I understand completely the sentiment, and I feel the same way about them. The reason I say this is because 0Db and I have to spot these and get rid of them quickly. It is easier to do when a regular posted has not replied to it - yes I know I see the original poster but I'm assuming when there are responses by regulars it's a legitimate question.
I don't always have the opportunity to log in every few hours, and then when I do I might only have a few minutes to look for violators in sometimes long list of unread posts. 0db listens through every music submission we have - let's face it, that's time consuming and audio can be more offensive than plain text (and he comments on all of them, too). Admin manages a multitude of web projects for Harman Music Group (not just Digitech), and does not have time to look for spam - she does ban each and every single spammer within hours if not minutes, and looks for patterns in their information to prevent more from coming.
That's all the staff we have here - for comparison, the Latin Wikipaedia has seven times as many, and they have fewer users and less posting.
It would make our jobs easier if the spam on the board go untouched, and - when it's possible to tell spam from the subject - unviewed. Some spam messages have linked images, which makes it possible for their web site to tell which boards they're getting hits from. It goes without saying that you should not click on any links in a message that looks like spam - same principle as with e-mail spam.
Thanks... and again, we are really sorry that it keeps happening.
Comments
Ilia,
Absolutely no reason for you to apologize!! I know first hand that it is very time consuming to moderate a board (and I'm on a smaller forum with less members/posts per day). Your services don't go unnoticed or unappreciated 8) . Thank you to both you and ODB 8) 8)
Most spam posts here get 15 or fewer views, so I'm pretty proud of the work we do here. If it's not good enough for you, just let us know; the spammers probably don't read your responses anyway, so why waste your time and energy replying? Instead, drop one of us an e-mail or PM (I believe all three of us get PM notifications via e-mail), and we'll take care of it right away. It is best to contact me or 0db, since we are tasked with watching this stuff, and like I said, admin has enough things to worry about.
How about this? Let's have a game. If you see spam, report it to one of the moderators (iliace or 0dannyboy). If we get your report before the spam is removed, you get a point. Once you have enough points, we'll decide on the prize you deserve!
Thanks guys/gals for understanding.
I want tickets to the Dio/Sabbath show coming up in Detroit and I'm sure we know what Shredd wants as his prize
Great forum, guy's. Thanks again
BUT - I like the idea of a game. Any chance first prize is a hot oil massage with Sienna Miller?!? :twisted:
OK, you've convinced me. We are researching this matter (I'm a PHP n00b as it were). If you have any specific information that might be helpful, please let us know.
That still does not negate the fact that users should not respond to spam.
You would create a simple page that takes 1 parameter from the \"response\" object and sends an email or PM to each of the moderators.
The link would simply contain that above mentioned Thread ID, so the link URL would look something like : \"http://www.guitarworkstation.com/forum/reportspam.php?threadID=xxxxxx\" where the x's are replaced with the thread id.
If I'm not mistaken, the reply page uses \"t\" as the thread ID:
http://www.guitarworkstation.com/forum/posting.php?mode=reply&t=5529
I hope this helps.
What I'm not seeing is how to pass the message body to privmsg.php. It seems to get it from the form (I might be missing something), and this is where I'm hazy in all this. You can't just enter it in the database, because then it would not send the notification.... so do you then recreate privmsg.php code without the form part? Is it possible to instantiate the form and address it to populate elements, without making it visible - then call privmsg.php? Or is this done somehow altogether differently?
http://www.phpbb.com/about/features/ Connie may just need to enable it in the forum configuration.
I'm sure there are probably quite a few mods that extend this functionality as well, but until the new phpBB.com site fully recovers from their recent hardware failure the mod database is offline:
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=526997
Shreddy, you kill me!
Peace,
Dobb.
No man. We're all civilized animals here. We must have due process.