Spammers from India and Beyond

[Mike]

Hey guys,

Mark brought it to my attention that many of us are starting to get annoyed by the members who are just posting links to their sites and a bunch of gibberish keywords.

What do you think we should do to fix this issue?

Be harsher on the new members who have not proven themselves to add valuable content?

I could even charge a very small membership fee like 5 dollars a year or something that might repel most spammers... Just an idea.

Any other ideas?

[Mark Rosenthal]

Some options that we have are stopping members that are not here in the U.S.A.

Your signature is the place to put your link. I would love to see more agents posting stuff that answers questions. You would be reward and get on page 1 of google if you brought value to this forum. Meaning dont just say for cheap car insurance visit my website. Maybe make a post that says" Does the color of your car make your car ins rates go up and then answer the question. So that when people google it, they will get their answer and will see who answered it and your link will be in your signature.

I dont think charging a fee is a good idea.

I have seen on top gun, that they require you to give them your lic number to join.

It is just a fine balance when it comes to spam/traffic on forums.

If you ban too much, the traffic will stop and if you dont ban enough, the good posters will leave.

Right now, we ban 100% of the spam that has nothing to do with insurance.

We ask insurance agents to bring value to the forum and then you can promote youself in a tasteful way.

Id love to hear what others have to say about improving the forum.

[bsd058]

Some options that we have are stopping members that are not here in the U.S.A.

Your signature is the place to put your link. I would love to see more agents posting stuff that answers questions. You would be reward and get on page 1 of google if you brought value to this forum. Meaning dont just say for cheap car insurance visit my website. Maybe make a post that says" Does the color of your car make your car ins rates go up and then answer the question. So that when people google it, they will get their answer and will see who answered it and your link will be in your signature.

I dont think charging a fee is a good idea.

I have seen on top gun, that they require you to give them your lic number to join.

It is just a fine balance when it comes to spam/traffic on forums.

If you ban too much, the traffic will stop and if you dont ban enough, the good posters will leave.

Right now, we ban 100% of the spam that has nothing to do with insurance.

We ask insurance agents to bring value to the forum and then you can promote youself in a tasteful way.

Id love to hear what others have to say about improving the forum.

Banning people from outside the US is problematic for me in particular, since I actually live in Canada. But that's just me. I am getting my US designations because I plan on moving to the east coast (nearer to family) when our house comes up for refinancing (we're selling). Charging a fee would be too much of a repellant, too, since forums are very elastic in their demand (ie. price increases, and you lose way too many subscribers, since the supply of forums is great). People switch to the next site and the other problems continue. But then this site will be left with no members.

I think a person providing their license number to be a member might be good, because these numbers are public domain anyways and many spammers wouldn't know where to look for the info anyways. It takes away from the anonymity of the site, though. Not sure if people will like it.

What about possibly a trial membership to see if they bring any value? Problem with this is that it takes too many people, and too much time to monitor every member.

Another way is to offer a simple logic (word) puzzle when creating a membership profile. This will ensure spammers from countries who do not understand English will not be able to enter the site. Just a thought. Not sure if this would cause more problems or not.

If I can think of something later, I'll post it.

Thank you for trying to fix this issue. I appreciate it.

[cmn1212]

I don't think a fee is a good idea either. Would it help any to require the state or country a new member is from? It's been a while since I signed up, but I don't think you require it. This might be a little far fetched, but can you ban people from the countries that are the worst offenders? Not sure that even makes any sense!
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PS. You need more smiley faces!!
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[xrac]

I agree with Mark about the fee idea. My thought is just delete posts that don't bring value. Eventually they should take the hint.

[bsd058]

I agree with Mark about the fee idea. My thought is just delete posts that don't bring value. Eventually they should take the hint.

This might be the best idea. Delete the posts and ban the user if you are able to determine they are just spammers.

[DevonM]

Most of the spam posts on our site come from automated programs I think. The reCAPTURA plug-in on some sites seems to help as long as viewers can actually read what's being shown. I think a fee would deter quite a few people from posting or adding value. Many forums make money off of products like AdSence so asking users to pay probably wouldn't be a good idea in the long run. I suppose if you could block out-of-country users from creating a profile that could help. On our site we have spammers who just select their country to be in the USA (Usually New York) and then spam our blog section so that doesn't work for us. Maybe limit URLs from profiles with less than 10-20 posts?

[Mike]

Thanks a lot for the ideas and input guys!!!

The idea of just being a little bit harsher on deleting spam posts and banning people who break the rules seems to make sense to me! Its important to listen to Mark when he says that we have to find a balance, some people might sign up to gain a few links but if we let them stick around... they might turn into helpful active members.

However, I also think it would be a good idea if people could fill out a little bit more information when they join the site.

For example... Where they are from, age, what there job is, what they are looking to contribute/gain from the forums.

Like bsd058 said, this would take away some of the anonymity from the site, but i am ok with that!

PS. The fee idea is not going to happen, this site will always be free!!

[Mark Rosenthal]

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Here is an example of not being able to find the right balance. This forum was shut down last week.

[xrac]

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 20 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Here is an example of not being able to find the right balance. This forum was shut down last week.

Mark, is it just me or have the spammers been out in greater numbers lately?