This isn't working

[jerry]

Kat recently unlocked the front door of the forum so anybody can register and post msgs. 

They still need admin approval before they show up on the board, but that means an admin or moderator must look at and approve or delete dozens or hundreds of spam messages every day.

I tried, but couldn't keep up with the traffic.  I gave up trying to delete messages and just deleted the accounts of known spammers.  Last night I spent three hours and finally caught up at 2AM.

In the past week I approved just ONE new account for Blackie.  I don't know if the other mods have seen any legitimate new accounts.  The hundreds of other new accounts were all spammers listed in the anti-spam databases.

Please, please add one of the forum mods available at http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php

There were similar problems a few years ago on the FSP Forum and the problem went away when they installed a spam blocker mod.

I'll be on the road in a few days, away from the computer, so someone else will have to pick up the load

[Tom Sawyer]

Thanks for your work Jerry.

[dalebert]

I tried to get them to do the same thing on the Free Talk Live boards where someone, for some bizarre reason, just suddenly made me a mod. I was told it would require paying someone to do the install so it wouldn't happen. The mods, meanwhile, were all working for free. I quit modding. Spam away!

I have a feeling they were making it out to be a lot more of a deal than it really would be. I know it can't be much work to install an addon.

[Russell Kanning]

thanks jerry
I just approve anyone that isn't a robot and leave the rest
I don't know exactly how to get Kat to do forum things ...... she has to be in just the right mood and me saying anything probably ruins it .... so let's just pretend I didn't say anything

[dalebert]

... she has to be in just the right mood and me saying anything probably ruins it .... so let's just pretend I didn't say anything

Well then have you tried reverse psychology?

[Russell Kanning]

good idea
I must not do that quite right because it doesn't work either

[jerry]

thanks jerry
I just approve anyone that isn't a robot and leave the rest
I don't know exactly how to get Kat to do forum things ...... she has to be in just the right mood and me saying anything probably ruins it .... so let's just pretend I didn't say anything

Well, if that's the way you want it done it will be lots easier on me, but won't your space run out soon?

[jerry]

Well, I couldn't stay away from it.  I have OCD  when it comes to spammers. 

So after getting caught up on banning them and removing their messages I was randomly banning or deleting their accounts when I noticed that the ones I deleted were back the next day making new accounts from the same IP address.

SO , it is better to ban their accounts than to delete them, because this prevents them from logging on and leaving new messages with a new account.

I also found that by checking each new member against the spammer database I could ban them BEFORE they left any messages.  If I do this twice a day it cuts the number of spams considerably.

The only problem with this is I can only ban them after they create an account.  It would be much more effective if there was an option to ban with only the IP address before they make an account.

So if you are deleting a spammer's accounts, don't;  it is better if you ban them instead.

[KBCraig]

As often as I check this forum (a couple of times a day, at least), I'm surprised that there is any spam problem. I know Jerry's not on here constantly to delete spam, yet I can't recall the last time I saw spam here.

Spam new user accounts? Yeah, there's not much to do about bot sign-ups. But if they're not posting, what's the problem?

[Tom Sawyer]

Your diligence is appreciated Jerry. 

[jerry]

As often as I check this forum (a couple of times a day, at least), I'm surprised that there is any spam problem. I know Jerry's not on here constantly to delete spam, yet I can't recall the last time I saw spam here.

Spam new user accounts? Yeah, there's not much to do about bot sign-ups. But if they're not posting, what's the problem?

If you are not a moderator or an administrator you don't see the couple dozen spams that are posted every day.

[Russell Kanning]

Yea we have to OK posts
So no spam will get through

[dalebert]

So once a post has been allowed through, you can then post without moderation?

[jerry]

So once a post has been allowed through, you can then post without moderation?

I believe that is how it works.
I have seen exactly ONE legitimate new account and when I approved that message he was able to post more.

I don't know if the other moderators have approved any others.

Regular users don't see the Chinese, Polish, Korean, etc spammers who are pushing Viagra, Ugg boots and Asian travel agencies who sign up several accounts every day. 

So the only problem they create here is using up disk space on Kat's server, but we could get a bad reputation from the search engines when their webcrawlers index all the links in the spam.  This site will eventually be listed as a source of spam links.  That's why I'm trying to block as many as possible.

[Raineyrocks]

This is all news to me.  I'm a moderator, aren't I?   I don't see any of this stuff, I don't know why.