Spam.

[Zo]

What is it with all this spam? Really getting on my wick.

Dont know how many moderators/admin we have round here - but I'd like to offer to help as I'm online all day from work?

Here if you need me.

[geordierussell]

same goes for me.

[pete]

I too am getting sick of these parasites

[Col]

I've offered a few times.

C'mon mods let some others on board.

[Dave C]

I offered a while ago too, alas no-one took me up,

[Ean]

It's not so much the number of mods (there are seven BTW), it's that the spambots can get through the screening process too easily. Having to answer a question instead of typing the letters in the box is quite effective except for human spammers, unfortunately, research into this has been well and truly scuppered by phpBB suffering a major technical meltdown over the last few days.

[Trudi]

...and AFAIK mods can't mod other users, only the board owner has the rights to do that.

There are alternatives such as vBulletin which appear to be a bit more spam-proof, but they ain't free...

[Zo]

It's not so much the number of mods (there are seven BTW), it's that the spambots can get through the screening process too easily. Having to answer a question instead of typing the letters in the box is quite effective except for human spammers, unfortunately, research into this has been well and truly scuppered by phpBB suffering a major technical meltdown over the last few days.

I take your point Ean - that it shouldnt be so easy for the people doing the spam to register in the first place. In an ideal world - am sure it could be fixed to be like that.

However, what I'm questioning is the number of people online who have the ability to DELETE the posts that the spammers make - for example, right now there's a post from some spammer in just about every forum on here - surely that would only take 5 minutes for one mod to clean up??

I dont mean to criticize anyone personally here - but although there might be enough mods/admin, there's clearly not enough online at any point, otherwise this influx of spam would be deleted before us 'non-mods' noticed it.

Rant over - i'll fuck off now.

[Col]

leave the spam about increasing penis size please.

[kriscoverdale]

However, what I'm questioning is the number of people online who have the ability to DELETE the posts that the spammers make - for example, right now there's a post from some spammer in just about every forum on here - surely that would only take 5 minutes for one mod to clean up??

Cleaned up now.

I put some anti-spam measures in place around Christmas, which led to a significant drop-off in the amount of bots registering and posting. Looks like the bot-world has moved on again, so once phpbb is all backup, I'll have another look with Rick at what new measures we can put in place.

Like Ean says, I think that cutting the spam off at source is the best approach rather than having to remove after the event. I'll have a check with the other mods about how often they get on though, and to see if we need to add more.

Cheers
Kris