Combating the Spam on This Forum

[craig96]

Hey, I have a few ideas for helping to combat the spam on this forum, there is not too many but some posts are just nonsense really.

1. I think people should be more aware of the "report post" button to report posts that are nonsense or even posts that are "yes I agree" on 3+ more posts. I myself am lazy with this but will be using it in the future.

2. Any sig that links to a non gambling link should not be allowed. A person with an "SEO Company" sig is not joining this forum to learn more about the gambling industry and wants to help others.

3. A 10+ posts or more rule that will enable people to have a sig will put spammers of and will make spam appear more obv as they try to get 10 posts asap

4. I personally believe that 2 links per signature is enough. Sorry to all the people who have more than 2. I just believe 2 is more than generous and to the people with 2 links to the same site, you are wasting your time.

[WinYourWayKyle]

As an active and contributing member of the forum, I would second this notion.
Just trying to give you some extra support craig.... I know you are an active member here as well.

[universal4]

Well I am TOTALLY and completely against limiting links in sigs to only 2 and I don't think the GPWA should be trying to dictate whether webmasters want to put a nongambling site in their sig.

Overall the limits you propose would NOT stop any spam that is taking place now, and would only place restrictions on valid active members....

We have been paying more attention to what is acceptable concerning postings, and been doing a fair amount in the background to start limiting posts. We have become more aggressive in banning those who do not want to pay attention to the defined rules.

We have to understand that because we have a fair amount of regular visitors here and also that there is truly a lot of good content here, as well as a nice following of active people in the general webmaster community as well as the gambling community that people are taking notice.

Rick
Universal4

[SlotsAff]

Whilst some good points are made, you can't directly rule out non-gambling members.

I am involved myself but there could be content writers or designers for example that contribute to this industry in their own way.

Hope this makes sense.

[craig96]

Well I am TOTALLY and completely against limiting links in sigs to only 2 and I don't think the GPWA should be trying to dictate whether webmasters want to put a nongambling site in their sig.

Overall the limits you propose would NOT stop any spam that is taking place now, and would only place restrictions on valid active members....

We have been paying more attention to what is acceptable concerning postings, and been doing a fair amount in the background to start limiting posts. We have become more aggressive in banning those who do not want to pay attention to the defined rules.

We have to understand that because we have a fair amount of regular visitors here and also that there is truly a lot of good content here, as well as a nice following of active people in the general webmaster community as well as the gambling community that people are taking notice.

Rick
Universal4

Just to reply to you without getting an argument going. You would say that as you have more than 2 links per sig and one is a none gambling link also.

These are points that I think would make the forum better. I am aware that limiting the sig would turn some people away but you do get people on here that are only replying to threads for a link.

[craig96]

Whilst some good points are made, you can't directly rule out non-gambling members.

I am involved myself but there could be content writers or designers for example that contribute to this industry in their own way.

Hope this makes sense.

You do make a valid point that some links to article writers, developers would be beneficial. But there is a boarder line. Someone who writes articles and does not own an affiliate site can not really get involved in the threads as much.

[SlotsAff]

You make a good point craig96, maybe non-gambling members such as writers, designers etc should be allowed on a certain section of the forum only.

[universal4]

Maybe we should take away sig's from any members that haven't been here less than 6 months....or maybe a year....

Maybe we should limit sigs to people who have made more than 200 posts....

Rick
Universal4

[craig96]

Maybe we should take away sig's from any members that haven't been here less than 6 months....or maybe a year....

Maybe we should limit sigs to people who have made more than 200 posts....

Rick
Universal4

Having a limit on sigs would deffo put people off. E.g. 100 links for 1 links, 200 posts for 2 links, etc.

[JaqiC]

Rather than limit sigs based purely on the number of posts, shouldn't it be the number of posts in a specified time period? There are people on these forums who have been members for years, so they would naturally have a larger number of posts than those who have recently joined.

Also, it isn't necessarily the number of posts that is the question, but more to do with the quality of posts in my opinion. If someone legitimately has a lot of quality posts, I don't think that they should be penalized just because they hit the "magic number".

We should somehow find a way to check quality as well as quantity in the posts.

[universal4]

Damn...I wrote about a 10 paragraph response to this and am also having a frustrating system repair remotely (150 miles away) that made me carelessly hit the back button in the wrong window and lose the post.

I am totally and completly against ongoing posting quotas....(don't we all hate quotas placed on us by the programs)

I do support raising the entry level posting limit to earn the links.

Please understand that Anthony, the other mods, Michael and myself have been discussing this issue as well as the suggestions and thoughts that have been posted in recent weeks.

Rick
Universal4

[TheGooner]

It seems to me the signature links are the least of the issue - it's the casual drive-by Spammer that quickly posts 10 items for unrelated items that is clearly a large issue. They know it's spam. They know it won't last. But it qualifies as a link for their cheap link selling service that they're doing.

Here are a couple of suggestions.

For signature links : Put a couple of qualifying limits (say) made 20 posts and has 100 days membership before signatures can be added.

For spam posts : ANY post made by an account that is less than 30 days old AND that contains a link automatically goes into a moderator queue for approval.

Sure - neither idea is bullet proof - but both criteria effectively stop the casual spammer from gaining cheap links - unless they are going to hang around and fake being a member for a while.

I'd suggest that these ideas would remove 90-95% of the problem as the GPWA forum would simple not be worth their while to "game" IMO.

[Daera]

3. A 10+ posts or more rule that will enable people to have a sig will put spammers of and will make spam appear more obv as they try to get 10 posts asap

I definitely think that members should have some kind of minimum post limit before being allowed to have a siggy. Maybe even more than 10.

[Daera]

Rather than limit sigs based purely on the number of posts, shouldn't it be the number of posts in a specified time period? There are people on these forums who have been members for years, so they would naturally have a larger number of posts than those who have recently joined.

Also, it isn't necessarily the number of posts that is the question, but more to do with the quality of posts in my opinion. If someone legitimately has a lot of quality posts, I don't think that they should be penalized just because they hit the "magic number".

We should somehow find a way to check quality as well as quantity in the posts.

Some people like myself, might not post a lot in a short period of time. But I'm not a forum spammer either. If the goal is to reduce forum spam, then why would a number of posts within a specified period of time matter? After a certain amount of time you can pretty well see if someone is here for the right reasons, or to simply spam their links.

Maybe only private members should have siggys?

[ironman2000]

Hello Guys & dolls..................

I really don't see such an issue here about spamming as all the posts must be vetted before they are allowed on the forum!!!!!

This is part of the GPWA management and if they see that a blatant spamming post is been made the offender must be given a warning & if repeated then a temporary ban in place or even a lifetime ban if necessary!!!!

They will always be people coming up with new tricks etc

have a great week to all and this is just part of our life on the internet as a whole!!!!

Keith

[craig96]

Seems to me that I may have been a little drastic with the ideas at first. I guess the spam is really not that bad and most spam does get weeded out straight away. The only problem that we should agree on is that people who blant just come to the forum make a few meaningful/nomeaningfull comments (both still the same) and never to return as they only need a few links in their eyes from the same domain should not be credited with their sig links. We all could do that.

People who reply multiple times on the same thread can be a good indicator of a non spam user.

[craig96]

After reading the post: Link Removed
What about if 3 or more people report a post for nonsense then that user will get a warning PM?

[Former Member 14]

Hi All,

There are some good suggestions and pros and cons to each of them.

The topic of forum spam has been raised before - many times in fact. And it is getting worse. Not so much due to spammer drive-bys but more so from useless posts.

The threads have a "Thank You" link if a post appeals to you, use that.
Posting just for the sake of posting to say "Thanks", "I agree"...et al , is spammy, no doubt about it!

However there is a valid incentive to these people who post useless comments. It raises their post count, in doing so puts them in the running to have their site listed on the front of the gpwa.org home page.

Whilst I don't agree limiting sig links is the answer, I strongly believe being a GPWA members is not a right of passage to spam our forums. In saying this, we can either debate the topic of forum spam till the cows come home...or start working on a solution to combat those who are merely using our affiliate headquarters to ***** their links.



Cheers



Dave

[davenewgates]

Daera said that “maybe only private members should have sig”.. I totally disagree. But with limiting sigs, that will be alright.