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Post by merprincess on Nov 12, 2016 12:53:14 GMT -5
This forum is not as active as it used to be, which comes with the drawback that there are fewer and fewer moderators on the lookout for spam posts that don't belong on the forum. In the past several months, spam accounts have been spewing out spam posts. The posts are usually something about Kitchen Cabinets for sale in some area of the UK with a link, but to bypass posting the link, t-h-e-y w-r-i-t-e i-t o-u-t l-i-k-e t-h-i-s. I am not a moderator, therefore I don't have any power to take down posts like this, but I have been reporting them as "Spam". I encourage you to do the same. And if any of you are moderators, please try to delete these posts and check out the accounts posting them to see if the accounts are regular accounts that have been hacked, or complete spambot accounts that need to be taken down. If you have any additional suggestions or ideas on what to do about this, don't hesitate to reply, I'd love to hear your input!
Thank you.
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Post by buckmana on Nov 19, 2016 20:01:42 GMT -5
To be honest, I think the best solution at the moment is to delete their accounts and put a block on registering new accounts. Because if you haven't been posting here on a regular basis by now, it is unlikely that you are a true fan.
Alternately, it could be specified that new accounts have to be approved by admins before you can post a single message. Which would also have the effect of blocking all the spam, as the new account would simply say "posting permission not authorized" and block the spam message.
But if this goes on much longer, I will have to start looking into more decisive solutions. I know wikias have an appeal process that if a moderator has become absent for whatever reason, that you can request to become the new moderator/owner because they aren't there any more to take action. Whether proboards has the means to approve ownership transfer, I am uncertain. But if we don't hear from the moderators in a certain amount of time, I will start looking into that possibility.
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Post by merprincess on Nov 21, 2016 18:34:22 GMT -5
buckmana That's a good idea, hoping moderators/admin/the owner will see this and take action! (I've been wanting to be one since 2008/2009...)
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Post by buckmana on Dec 6, 2016 13:51:45 GMT -5
I've done my best to delete all the spam posts and the associated member profiles. For now, I'm waiting to see if it happens again.
If I see them come back, then I'll start investigating how to increase security so that automated software can't post without having their account approved via human moderation.
And if anyone sees a spam post that I miss, feel free to let me know about it, so I know that they are trying again.
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