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Stopping Spammers

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6 replies [Last post]

Mon, 04/19/2010 - 03:07

gekkota

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iPad Guide Senior Member

Joined: 04/07/2010

Posts: 307

Stopping Spammers

I've noticed in the past few days an increase in the number of spam postings, especially by one particularly "cute" member. I've been posting in forums for years, and I know that once these spammers get a toehold, it's hard to stop them. I have seen forums completely ruined by spammers. In the Touch Arcade forum--one of the largest forums for gaming--they are pretty aggressive about stopping spammers. At the top of each post there is an "alert" icon that can be clicked, notifying the mods of inappropriate or spam posts so that they can be quickly deleted.

I really hope that this forum can implement a similar method for dealing with spammers before it gets out of hand. I think as a new forum, it's important to address this potential problem sooner rather than later. Just a suggestion. Thanks.

Mon, 04/19/2010 - 15:33

#1

Franklin Macey

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iPad Guide Team Member

Joined: 01/28/2010

Posts: 85

Re: Stopping Spammers

Thanks for the heads up.

Tue, 04/20/2010 - 00:09

#2

Colin Breck

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iPad Guide Administrator

Joined: 01/26/2010

Posts: 184

Re: Stopping Spammers

gekkota wrote:

I've noticed in the past few days an increase in the number of spam postings, especially by one particularly "cute" member. I've been posting in forums for years, and I know that once these spammers get a toehold, it's hard to stop them. I have seen forums completely ruined by spammers. In the Touch Arcade forum--one of the largest forums for gaming--they are pretty aggressive about stopping spammers. At the top of each post there is an "alert" icon that can be clicked, notifying the mods of inappropriate or spam posts so that they can be quickly deleted.

I really hope that this forum can implement a similar method for dealing with spammers before it gets out of hand. I think as a new forum, it's important to address this potential problem sooner rather than later. Just a suggestion. Thanks.

gekkota -- you're 100% correct. A sister site of The iPad Guide had its forums completely run into the ground by spammers. They are very difficult to keep at bay. Be sure we'll be working diligently to make sure this doesn't happen to the forums here.

We're exploring adding an alert button. Stay tuned.

As for the "cute" posts you're referring to, we did see this and will be removing the posts shortly.

Thanks for the concern and relating your experiences. Hopefully the other readers of the forum will be similarly vigilant.

In the meantime, while we lack an report/alert button, all of you should feel free to use our contact form (linked from the top navigation menu on all pages) to alert us to spam posts. Simply paste the URL of the spam post into the contact form with a brief indication that it is a report of spam. I know this makes for a little more work on your part, but hopefully it is a reasonable stop-gap measure.

Tue, 04/20/2010 - 00:45

#3

Chad Shmukler