Norrie,

Isn't it possible to lock the forum so that only members can post and stop the dick'eads and viagra advertisers?

If I needed viagra I wouldn't be looking on here for it and anyway the XM takes up way too much of my time for that sort of thing!

Thanks.

Hi Dave,

The simple answer to your question is yes, it can be locked up. However, as you may be able to tell I've tried to keep the site as open and friendly as possible. Some people get put off by the whole registration and joining process. Until now its not really been a problem. The number of viagra ads has increased lately to approximately one per day. At this rate it is possible to keep on top of it and just delete them. However, if the problem gets worse then I'll have no option other than to close the lock on non-member posts.

I too am frustrated by these dickheads but I was talking to an IT guru the other day and he said the reason it happens is because its so successful. There are enough respondents to make it a worthwhile form of advertising. It is increduluous to me that anyone would respond and actually buy viagra from one of these ads but apparently it happens. So the rest of the population of the world must put up with this crap because enough lunatics actually press the @yes please, send some to me' button.

It takes all sorts.

cheers

noz

Damned annoying aren't they? I responded to the a-hole that posted on here the other day and failed to log in, so hereby claim resonsibility for my witty riposte...
Maybe we should flood HIS limp-d*cks forum with offers for recharged spheres? He may see the funny side....

Loopy

I've heard a very interesting suggestion to remedie the spam problem. If everyone takes every 10th spam and make a fake order with a fake but checksum correct creditcard number, The internet can provide that information, then the spamers's profit would very quickly go up shitcreek without any sort of paddle.

Hi all,

Right, I've changed the permissions on the 'General anything goes' section so that you have to be a member to post. Lets try that for a while and see how persistent the B2$%$&"%&s are.

cheers

noz

Hi all,

No sooner said.....

The oiks are now registering for member accounts using some automated system. I can see an upgrade coming soon to use those 'pictures' of numbers at registration time to thwart the automated registration process.

How tedious.

Remember the adolescent last year who was eventually done for sending out 100's of millions of spam e-mail? Although the evidence was completely overwhelming he completely denied it up until the very last moment. How many oiks are spending their drug addled wee hours pouring over a keyboard messing up everyone else's lives? Some person's little darling(s) are sitting in their bedrooms with more computer equipment than you can shake a stick at with no visible means of income. Next time you find one, ask him where he gets his income from and how many pieces of spam he has to send out to earn his crust. It will be someone near you!!

cheers

noz

They haven't got the brains to do that round here Noz.
They just kick people's cars in instead

Hi all,

I've had to turn on the text validation feature of the validation process to stop the automated membeship applications. I hope that doesn't inconvenience anyone too much.

If only all of their efforts were combined to do something useful in the world !!

noz

On the Aussie Cit Car Club forum we are using word substitutions etc to peeve them off a bit. It seems to be slowing down the try hards.

Admins can put in word substitutions like "viagra" is replaced by "I am a loser who has no life" etc.

Admins regularly delete accounts and/or posts or lock posts.

There are a couple there at present. Look at

http://www.citroencarclub.org.au/forum/index.php

Hi Noz,

Sorry to labour on about this but I am a member of a financial trading forum as well and we are having absolute hell with the pervs on there. We have pushing on about 500 registered! I have joined the admin team just to help delete them all.

We have had a mass influx of robot spammers but the mods are locking them down now. I deleted about 50 tonight but I think its going to be a big job.

Have you any tips on how you kept Club-XM secure? PM me if you don't want to give any secrets away. Any help would be very welcome.

Thanks.

Hi demag,

I think you must be confusing me with someone who knows what they're doing. I started by simply deleting them as they posted until the numbers just got too high. Then I switched on the setting to stop posting until you were a member. That worked for a while until the bots started registering themselves. So next, I switched on the old painted numbers and letters during the registration process. That worked for a while. However, they are still managing to register. Its hard to tell a bonafide member from a spammer based on their handle or email address. I tried to get all new members to make at least one posting. Very shortly I'll delete all the members off the database with no posts to their name. Unfortunately I'll catch some genuine members in that process. Before doing that I'll mass mail every one and give them two weeks to make their first post.

Apart from that I haven't done anything clever.

Do you have any suggestions? (apart from finding them and beating the living daylights out of them that is..) If we had conscription back again they'd be too busy to make everyone's life a misery.

cheers

noz

Hi all,

I know I'll regret saying this but we've had no perv postings for a week or so now. I tweaked the registration system to make the code harder to read and hey presto.

Whats that I hear.... a tidal wave !?!

cheers

noz

Could always have a topic page just for them. Keep em all together, then delete