New Posters or Spam?

[trekgeezer]

I've been noticing a lot of new names showing up lately, which in itself is not a bad thing. We always welcome real B fans and appreciate some new input.  There have been quite a few old posts being ressurected which as some of the old timers have noticed seems fishy.

I received some nasty insults on a couple of mine by someone called Mark the other day which I quickly removed. This is a message to Mark or whatever you're calling yourself now, if you want to get personally insulting with someone here, you shouldn't pick a Moderator to do it to. Actually you shouldn't do it to anyone here, because we tend to be diligent about such things.

I'm keeping an eye out on the old posts resurfacing situation and would appreciate our regulars letting one of the Mods know when things are looking like they are getting out of hand.

[odinn7]

Trek,
You guys do as good as you can. There's alot of activity on this board so it's got to be tough to keep up with it. I try to point things out when I see them but I also don't want to become a pain in the ass about it. What would you say is the best way to notify the mods here without becoming a nuisance? A post pointing something out, an e-mail to a specific mod, or an e-mail to all mods? I will do my part because I hate spam and trolls and I also don't want to see this board go down hill.

[Ash]

A lot of my threads constantly get resurrected because people put phrases into search engines and this board comes up.

My threads have inadvertantly brought quite a few newbies to this board....unfortunately, most of them are idiots that only stick around a couple of days.



Post Edited (04-05-05 19:10)

[AndyC]

Since yesterday, I've knocked off a couple of posts by a guy who likes to start new threads asking about the theme from Flesh Gordon.  Different name, but always from the same address. Left his original post up, but it's not doing much. Where do these people come from?

[odinn7]

Better question AndyC...what fun do they get out of this? I love to joke around and I'm seldom serious but I really can't imagine the low intelligence it must take to think that's fun or funny.

Anyway, perhaps you could answer the question I asked in my previous post since Trek obviously decided I'm not worth talking to.

You just wait Trek...You wait until you tell us you're going away...you think Scott was roasted? And here I thought you'd be cool to me since I have that new sig that you should recognize given you seem to be a Trek fan. Man, you've changed man...you used to be cool...I don't even know the person you've become anymore.
No seriously, the question I asked was a serious one. I see things on here sometimes and I'm not sure if I should contact someone (and if so, how?) or if I should just let it go and one of you will take care of it once you see it.

[Menard]

I have figured out a a sign suspicious behavior is anybody actually replying to one of my reviews. (:

TG has to take a vacation sometime; we will be more than happy to....uhh...keep an eye on things while he is gone.

[AndyC]

Probably an email to any mod would take care of it. Don't worry about being a nuisance. The guy you report is probably being a bigger one.

I just get worried about being too heavy-handed. I wouldn't want this to become one of those boards that are so well-policed that the mods are cracking down on every little thing. There are places you can't even make an off-topic post. On this board, we like a certain amount of flexibility. We don't have a lot of cut-and-dried rules here, and that makes modding a bit tricky.

Every once in a while, I see something that looks like somebody's just being a pain, but it's not completely clear that they are. Or, it just doesn't seem quite far enough outside our rather broad range of normal practices to be entirely clear-cut. Some trolls can be pretty subtle. There's the odd time I've wanted to post something like "I'll delete this, if the rest of you concur." I mean, there have been people I thought were just here to jerk us around, but others didn't seem to mind them.

The only thing that really bothers me is when some troll posts on a not-too-busy thread at some odd hour of the night, and we get one of those "where the hell are the mods?" type of threads. Really, there are quite a lot of mods here, and we do have our eyes open. But we don't always see everything, so it's good when people point things out.

[odinn7]

Wow, you guys are efficient...I was just going to complain about that moron on the Damnation Alley topic again. That guy needs a serious ass kicking.

[Andrew]

Some of them are new posters, others are spam.  As AndyC noticed, it can be difficult to tell them apart.  Well, not the spam, but just the difference between a restrained troll and a new poster who is excited.

Honestly, the fact that the board stayed so usable for all those months that I was gone is a direct reflection of the superb job that all the moderators did.  In case I forgot to say it, thank you all.

The online poker moron is a little difficult.  Either he is spoofing his host or else the bugger is using zombie machines.  If he really becomes a problem, I will go to the only option to deal with such - require registration to post.  I'd just like to avoid that if possible.  If it starts bugging anyone too much, let me know andrew@badmovies.org and I'll turn on registration if enough people tell me it has passed their annoyance level.

[odinn7]

Andrew, the annoyance level of the spam isn't too bad because the mods take care of it real well. The only thing that concerns me is that some spam becomes more spam and on and on. I've seen boards wrecked by spam getting out of hand and I just get concerned that it will happen here. I suppose, however, that if it did escalate to such a bad level, all you would need to do is then require registration and that would be the end of it, correct?

[Andrew]

odinn7 wrote:

> Andrew, the annoyance level of the spam isn't too bad because
> the mods take care of it real well. The only thing that
> concerns me is that some spam becomes more spam and on and on.
> I've seen boards wrecked by spam getting out of hand and I just
> get concerned that it will happen here. I suppose, however,
> that if it did escalate to such a bad level, all you would need
> to do is then require registration and that would be the end of
> it, correct?
>

Registration pretty much does the trick.  It means that scripts cannot easily just post.  I just hate using such a measure, because every step of security you take also reduces the ease of use of a system.