Admin lost control

[colin-yorkshire]

hi all,
here is my take on all this, it works for me, take it as you wish, for starters running a forum as administrator is not easy hell it is hard enough just being a moderator, for which the likes of Parksy and Damian should be held in the highest regard for the job they do to keep this forum functioning.
while the forum is not state of the art in it's function in fact it is quite large with a a big membership and at times high volume posts on the message boards, one of the problems with it is it does not have private messages, so a mod has to e-mail the members if asked to, it is not done automatically, and second it does not have a shout box, where members who are on line can converse in an instant outside the message boards.

this can create a problem, in so much as posts are self verified and posted as they are written and does not keep spammers off the pages, these have to be deleted by hand one at a time, and the spammer banned.
if you go to a verified system as some have suggested all posts are stacked up in a admin queue, in order to be allowed on the forum, could one imagine the time it would take to read and verify every post in a queue when the forum is busy would almost be a full time job, it is no easier just vetting the first post by a new member, as a spammer would just post one fictitious post until accepted then start spamming.

while the system is not perfect it is better than some that have a admin queue as this prevents follow on replies to posts just entered, unless the admin is sat at the computer 24/7 so it is not practical.

ordinary members can do a lot to keep the site spam free however by reporting it as soon as seen. they can also protect themselves from the spam E-mails in several ways.
first, do not subscribe to any topic, then alerts will not be sent to your inbox.
second, instead of logging on and then reading the forum one can have a look first as a guest, then log on if there is anything you wish to reply to.
third, anything that comes from the site you do not wish to accept can be transferred to the trash bin and marked as spam, everything after that will go straight there not in your inbox.
please note, if you do this keep the moderators E-mail in your contacts or the site cannot get in touch, as all communications will be marked spam.
all the forums that I am on have been dealt with in this way and I never receive any trash, of any kind, except of course the bike forum I own, but that is set up with it's own administrator e-mail.

 

[Damian]

Well, what a day !!!

First of all I must say Thank You to all who alerted us to the problem with the quite severe attack by idiots who think it funny to spam the life out of other peoples websites.

Thank You also to Kate and Lizzie at Haymarket who were able to completely remove all the rogue posts.
I tried to remove them all but with the number submitted by one user, 77 to be precise, it was too much for the tools available to me at the time.

Thanks also to Parksy who I know to be away and on a limited internet connection.

Lastly a Thank You to all the messages of support, it is good to know that our efforts are respected and that in general we are getting things right regarding the operation of the Forum.

It is sometimes the case that a rogue post remains visible, and in that case I usually edit it and remove all the text so that the originator cannot get his or her message over.

 

[LizziePope]

Just to echo Damian's post and to thank him & Parksy very much indeed. We are investigating why this has started again and working on ways to improve things so it is less disruptive, so thank you in advance for your patience while we work through these issues. Any erroneous messages will be removed and the associated accounts deleted as soon as we can manage. Thanks again.

 

[crazyguider]

I notice there is an odd one in competitions thread...reported.

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

I notice there is an odd one in competitions thread...reported.

Yes, I reported that one earlier, plus a second one.

Perhaps we should be more proactive and the first person state on the offending thread that they have reported it to the Mods then they won't get too many emails. Would this be OK Mods or would this leave some out of context replies which wouldn't be wanted?

 

[crazyguider]

I just found the second one and reported it, too, Sir WC. Was going to do just as you suggested

 

[Parksy]

We're always grateful to everyone who reports spam or untoward posts, but if you add on the thread that you reported it it gives us an opportunity to click the Thank You button to show our appreciation :cheer:

 

[ProfJohnL]

It seems in life society always likes a scapegoat to blame, but in so many things if you actually look at the problem, the people who often get blamed are actually innocent, its just they are perceived to carry the can because we can see who they are, and they may have a role that suggests they are there to protect us.

In the case relating to this thread, There was initially a suggestion that moderators and the the site owners were to blame for not getting rid of the spam, but in reality, they have not created the problem it's the spammers who are to blame.

 

[JonnyG]

I didn't read any blame being portioned. surely if anything the term "expectation" could apply? wrongly or rightly there is a chance that a person expects too much? .personally i thought the moderators went to great lengths to explain the problems one clearly can encounter running an internet forum . don't want to sound grumpy but i wouldn't have spent such time, clearly the blame is with the spammers and maybe there is an expectation for some that the moderators can somehow sort it immediately and forever with a mere click of a button..

 

[Thingy]

and maybe there is an expectation for some that the moderators can somehow sort it immediately and forever with a mere click of a button..

Im sure it could be sorted simply by the click of a button, but I guess its a different button to the one you ae referring to

 

[Parksy]

It's natural for people to worry when spam or assorted gobbledygook appears to flood every forum message board, but when we see it it's a routine job to rid ourselves of it with a few mouse clicks, it's a nuisance but not dangerous as long as genuine forum users don't click on any spam url's (links).
At home on my trusty desktop computer spam removal can be quite enjoyable, therapeutic even! :evil:
I's sometimes a bit more challenging when I'm on site using my laptop on a strange broadband connection which can be limiting and unreliable.
I had bought a payg dongle thingy last year but sods law, I forgot all about it so I'm using the on site broadband at £15 per week for just one device per week which is very pricey indeed.

 

[Damian]

Whilst unwanted messages such as spam and flood are a nuisance they are not life threatening or life impacting, so if they stay on the forum for a while before we get to them, it is not going to hurt anyone.

We seem to have a "Spam Season" when after a long period of none, some suddenly appear and spread their messages, some with avengance like the other day when the spammer left 77 messages in the space of a few minutes.

Whilst we have the tools to ban and delete messages, sometimes the user is banned and messages deleted, but the post remains, albeit in a greyed out manner, in which case I have to manually edit the text out to remove it.

The other day because of the spread of the spam , in some cases involving posts 8 years old, it was only Lizzie at Haymarket who could remove them all, for which we are very grateful.

The forum security is much better at sifting out most of the spam merchants but like any system, some people enjoy beating the security and showing just how annoying they can be.

Like Parksy, I enjoy removing nuisance posters and their messages, but it is time consuming.

 

[DrZhivago]

I have never received spam or any other emails from this site, I guess because I have only just noticed the "Subscribe" button below each topic. I must try it.

Without knowing the type of spam here, it baffles me why spammers think it is a good way to advertise or why anyone would buy anything just because they got spam about it. Would have thought that spam would give most people negative vibes, losing potential customers.

I don't mind low-key static advertising related to a website, but it is infuriating to be followed around. Six months ago I bought a minor car accessory from a company on-line, and since then they have sent me about two spam emails a day (my spam filter keeps statistics). I will never buy anything from them again.

 

[Gabsgrandad]

Only just 'noticed' the "subscribe" button, what does it do? (Daren't press it!)

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

You get an email notification for EVERY new entry on that thread. :evil:

 

[Gabsgrandad]

Thanks Graham -- won't press it then!