Has this board tried mandatory admin approval of first post?

[OarConsequences]

The spam is getting fairly ridiculous lately. I've been squashing any that I find but have been leaving multiple spams from the same user alone as instructed. I don't know how many first posts from new users there are but it seems like it would have to be a smaller number than the amount of spam posts. Would it be better require approval of a first post from a new user so that none of the spam even gets to the board in the first place? I figure it would take less work to approve a few legit posts than to keep up with squashing many spam posts.

[PaulH]

Good idea - I'm not sure it's going to be any less work, but it should make the forum a tidier place. I've enabled it as an experiment on the main categories so far, let's see how it goes.

(As an aside, it's astonishingly difficult to set this up, despite how simple it is in theory, so I may have got it wrong!)

[PaulH]

Just did my first moderate - took me about as long as the old way, but I couldn't block the user at the same time. So a lose from my point of view, but I'll be interested to see what you think...

[Slothful1]

If you're able to delegate some of that extra hassle to the Spam Team, I'd be happy to help with killing things closer to the source.

Dave

[Citroen]

That works, it puts all the crap in one place.

http://www.c2forum.com/mcp.php?i=main&mode=front is the Spam team's route to find it.

[OarConsequences]

Thanks for at least trying it. It was getting to be so much noise that it was discouraging me from checking the forum so I imagine that others could be getting turned off as well. I hadn't considered the fact that it wouldn't allow for PaulH's standard method for blocking users. If that ends up being a deal breaker then maybe this isn't the best method but I'm glad that at least the board is clean for everyone else. Hopefully, the spammers are doing enough tracking to realize that their posts aren't even making it into the forum and the forum will not be included in new lists of boards to target.

So should the spam team be flushing out posts in Citroen's link? And should the spam posts be nuked regardless of how many are from the same poster?

[Citroen]

If it looks like spam, smells like spam the it's getting flushed down the *** DELETE - SPAM *** sink.

The moderator control panel (my link) let's us remove everything with a couple of clicks, so Paul won't need to worry about blocking the spammers.

Let's run like this until 2014 and do a review then.

[PaulH]

Agree with Citroen - there's nothing stopping me from using the old way, so if it helps the rest of the Spam team then it's a good thing.

[OarConsequences]

Has anyone else noticed that first post spam has gotten through without approval? Having to approve first posts has certainly cut down significantly on the spam that hits the board and from what I've seen the spam posts heavily outweigh the legit posts so I think it works better to stop everything and only let the legitimate posts get through. Still, I'm curious as to how first post spam is sneaking past.

[Citroen]

Still, I'm curious as to how first post spam is sneaking past.

If you find that sort of thing please DO NOT delete it.
Send a PM to PaulH with the id or a link to the post or whatever. (Like what I did with the ones you shot dead.)

Paul needs to make sure that the anti-spam settings are working.

[OarConsequences]

OK, got it. Will do that next time I see one.

[Slothful1]

Hi Paul

Is reporting one of those posts (using the Report Post icon) good enough for you, or do you prefer the info in a PM? I've just done a PM, but suddenly thought that the Report Post option might be quicker and easier for everyone if it gives the same info.

Thanks
Dave

[PaulH]

Either way is fine, Dave. Currently I *think* it's coming from 'sleeper' accounts that were created prior to making the change. I'd have expected them to get caught by it too, but perhaps not. Let a few more come through and I'll know for sure.

[PaulH]

Confirmed that these are coming from sleeper accounts, so feel free to delete them as hard as you wish - they'll run out of sleep eventually!

[Slothful1]

...pulls the big bat out of the bag...