Blog Post
Do these numbers take into account the appalling amount of forum spam that gets missed by your filters?
Hi Kirsty, you're right in calling this out. I should have included a mention of the spam in my update.
This has been particularly bad the last 4-6 weeks, and the content of the spam is even worse than the volume itself.
Fixing this has proven difficult so far, we are playing cat and mouse with the spammers, blocking frequently used words and IP addresses, but this can be a tough gave that may ultimately just end up being who gives up first.
I am pleased to say that from the 4th Oct to the 10th Oct there have been no new spam messages posted to the forum, but they are still trying.
There are some things that could be done about it, here are my plans and decisions so far.
I could change our community so that no one is able to publish a new comment or reply without moderator approval.
In the 18 years our forum has been here, this has never been the case, I am hesitant to make this change at the moment due to the impact this would have on our current active members.
What I will definitely be doing in the near future, is a rebuild of the roles, ranks and badges in the community.
By doing this, I believe I will be able to apply restrictions to new members (eg the first x number of posts made by a new member require moderation OR the first x number of days posts will require moderation for a new member)
A little more context around blocking key words too
Some of the words being used by spammers have been easy to block as they might relate to countries or products outside of our forum. But one example that is difficult to consider blocking is the word 'termination' as it relates to payroll.
I hope this sheds some light on what is being done about the spam in the forum - if you have any questions or advice, please feel free to send me a private messageAttempted to send DM, as suggested, but it may have been caught in those filters? ;-)
It just wouldn't post!
