The New Sudoku Players' Forum

[supershark]

Sorry for offtopic, but i must tell all of you about this limited time offer! I have just received

[Edited by Pappocom]

[afjt]

I'm getting fed up of these spammers (scammers) hitting our forum.
Is there no way we can stop people from including links in their posts until they have been a member for a certain length of time or have somehow had their identity verified ?

[lunababy_moonchild]

Yup, I'm fed up with it too. This is the third in two days. At least this one is clean, which is all that can be said about it.

Is there no way we can stop people from including links in their posts until they have been a member for a certain length of time or have somehow had their identity verified?

Would be a good idea, that, making sure that a person cannot post links until they've been registered for, say, three months.

Mind you we now have 5566 registered users. Is that not enough for any site?

Next thing you know the Forum will be invitation only!

Luna

[Chessmaster]

it is really annoying. i think spammers should be banned form the site. their should be a 3 strikes policy

[vidarino]

it is really annoying. i think spammers should be banned form the site. their should be a 3 strikes policy

Banning them will serve no purpose, as most of them only log on once, drop their crap and are never seen again.

I like the idea of not being able to post links until certain criteria is met, though...

[MCC]

What about Freedom of Speech, to impose any criteria for posting is censorship.

The only way to deal with spam is for the first viewee after checking out any links is to just post the word SPAM in a reply.

Firstly, this would alert any visitor, they could check out the link if they wanted, if it was SPAM they could ignore it, if it wasn't they could post a reply saying so.

Secondly, if no one posted a reply after spotting the SPAM message then the OP will soon dissappear into oblivion. Any reply will just keep it in sight.

A new post about SPAM could be initiated to disscuss any SPAM in general.

MCC

[vidarino]

What about Freedom of Speech, to impose any criteria for posting is censorship.

Eh? So by using a spam filter on my email account, I am imposing on the spammers' freedom of speech? This is a privately owned forum, and the forum owner decides 100% what is acceptable and what is not. Nor is it censorship if the local newspaper refuses to print my article for whatever reason. They own the paper, they get to decide what goes in and what does not.

Anyway, what I meant was that one should meet some kind of criteria to be able to use hyperlinks to other sites. Hmm, or maybe posts that contain links should simply be hidden until a moderator approves them, until the user has "proven him/herself worthy" and their posts get auto-approved.

Vidar

[lunababy_moonchild]

What about Freedom of Speech, to impose any criteria for posting is censorship.

Nobody and I mean NOBODY has the right to post pornography to this website. The first two spams were pornographic in detail - I checked them myself and frankly I do not need to log onto a website about Sudoku in order to be confronted with links to xxx rated video and online dating that contained links to images of a pornographic nature. The second post had xxx in the title thus you knew what you were getting into and could make an informed choice, the online dating one was deceptive, deliberately implying that it was only about online dating and deliberately innocent looking. I don't see why I should have to put up with that, I'm not going to put up with that and frankly, they can shove their freedom of speech where the monkey stuffs it's nuts. Oh, and we do have junior members who are more than underage for xxx and porn.

The other two spams were at least clean and only offered advertising, and thus the freedom of choice to ignore that you were talking about.

The only way to deal with spam is for the first viewee after checking out any links is to just post the word SPAM in a reply.

Firstly, this would alert any visitor, they could check out the link if they wanted, if it was SPAM they could ignore it, if it wasn't they could post a reply saying so.

All fine and dandy - and indeed I did this with the first 'online dating' spam - but it still leaves the first two with easy access to pornography which is still not appropriate for this site. And why, pray tell, should anybody visiting this site be exposed to pornography?

Secondly, if no one posted a reply after spotting the SPAM message then the OP will soon dissappear into oblivion. Any reply will just keep it in sight.

You can't just ignore pornography and hope that it goes away.

A new post about SPAM could be initiated to disscuss any SPAM in general.

Good idea, I look forward to seeing this.

Luna

[MCC]

...Eh? So by using a spam filter on my email account, I am imposing on the spammers' freedom of speech?

No, your not.

This is a privately owned forum,

This is true, but it's open to the public.

...and the forum owner decides 100% what is acceptable and what is not.

Also true, but first the owner has to know about the offending material.

Anyway, what I meant was that one should meet some kind of criteria to be able to use hyperlinks to other sites. Hmm, or maybe posts that contain links should simply be hidden until a moderator approves them, until the user has "proven him/herself worthy" and their posts get auto-approved.

Vidar

The only criteria I can think of is, is it Sudoku related or not Sudoku related.
And what if the link takes you to a site that has a tenuous connection to Sudoku but is not immediately obvious that it is about Sudoku, should this link be edited?
Do Wayne and Scott have the time to read every post and check out the relevancy of all hyperlinks?

I don't think Wayne or Scott can stop all offensive posts or spend the time checking them out, I think it's up to us to alert them of these post so they can be edited.

MCC

[MCC]

Nobody and I mean NOBODY has the right to post pornography to this website.

The post may be offensive to you Luna, but nobody has posted pornography to this site, although it had a link to one.
I agree that spam, offensive or innocent, shouldn't be posted at all, but it will be, and we have to be alert to this and police our own forums, and informing Wayne or Scott so that action can be taken.

... if no one posted a reply after spotting the SPAM message then the OP will soon dissappear into oblivion. Any reply will just keep it in sight.

You can't just ignore pornography and hope that it goes away.

I wasn't saying ignore pornography, I was saying ignore the post.

If we can spot SPAM and inform Wayne or Scott then they could either delete or edit the post.

MCC

[lunababy_moonchild]

The post may be offensive to you Luna, but nobody has posted pornography to this site, although it had a link to one.

Oh, well that makes it OK then doesn't it? The post only contained links to pornography, so let's not do anything about that then. Freedom of speech and all. I mean, the post was only offensive to me, apparently. Just as well that I was the one who posted the warning on the thread itself and then informed Scott - whom, incidentally removed the whole thread. There's a message in that right there, and no it's not because he likes me the best.

*Sigh*

Luna

[emm]

Luna, of course there's no place for porn in this forum, but as an observation, if I found a link to offensive material I would not insert a post in oversized red letters to advertise the fact. My prediction is that that upped the interest by a significant %.

Spam is here to stay – spammers have done their sums and will be completely unmoved and undeterred by your wrath. I agree with MCC - first poster simply write SPAM, send a word to the boss and everyone else ignore it.

[robert@fm]

Spamming of message-boards, WIKIs and guestbooks is a big problem nowadays, and is mostly done to boost search-engine rank.

There's a way to stop it working, and thereby discourage it; I don't recall the details, but it entails automatically adding a parameter ("rel=nofollow" or something like that) to every link posted, so search engines know not to index them...

[lunababy_moonchild]

Luna, of course there's no place for porn in this forum, but as an observation, if I found a link to offensive material I would not insert a post in oversized red letters to advertise the fact. My prediction is that that upped the interest by a significant %.

Well I'll bear that in mind for future reference.

Spam is here to stay – spammers have done their sums and will be completely unmoved and undeterred by your wrath.

Nitpicking although this may appear, my wrath - as you call it - was incurred by the freedom of speech comment, not the spam. Oddly enough I came to the conclusion a long time ago that my opinions were important only to me. However, I don't see why we should take such a fatalistic approach to this. We do not have to accept that spam is here to stay. Other Forums manage it, it must be manageable.

I agree with MCC - first poster simply write SPAM, send a word to the boss and everyone else ignore it.

I was the first, to all four, but by the time I got to the third I was fed up moaning.

However, I'm not this Forum's keeper

There's a way to stop it working, and thereby discourage it;...........................

Now see, thaaaat's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Luna

[lunababy_moonchild]

By the way, you may have noticed that we seem to be getting 1 spam a day now, whereas we got very few before.

It could lead to closing down this entire section (in the event that this section gets more spam than legitimate off-topic 'conversation'). Maybe we could just rename the section.

Luna