Fed up with advertising

<p>Recent post "HDMojO WATCHThe Jungle Book OnLine Movie HD 2016 Putlocker Free"</p>

<p >is one of a number of recent attempts to hijack our site and has been placed in the calendar events section.<br /></p>

<p >1. Can all photo.net members please ensure that you ignore these and send a meassage to the clown saying you are boycotting the site.<br /></p>

<p >2. Can admin immediately ban this clown permanently.</p>

<p >3. Can admin put in place a filter to block such future attempts<br /></p>

<p >As you will appreciate I am fed up with my subscription being abused.<br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p > <br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p>How to kill a website? <br>

I fully agree with you but I don't think it's very easy to block these guys. Every suggestion to halt them has a downside for new/regular users.</p>

<p>After many years I've decided to not renew my subscription to PN. For the most part I've enjoyed active participation, but what seems to be a lackadaisical screening or blockage of spam has gotten under my skin. I don't find other photography forums I participate in experiencing this type of annoyance, so I'm spending more time there. Although there have been numerous helpful and thoughtful ideas put forward to significantly reduce if not even end this type of activity on PN, I just don't see the moderators actively implementing processes or procedures to safeguard the enjoyment of paying members. Perhaps to much political correctness, I don't know. Anyway, it has been a nice journey and I wish you all well.</p>

There have been dozens of threads started for that site recently (I've gotten rid of a lot of them), but they have been started using several different accounts. When one gets banned, the spammer uses another. Unfortunately, there's no effective way to block spammers from setting up accounts that wouldn't also block legitimate users from setting up accounts.

 

Photo.net does have various procedures and filters for blocking spam, but again, it's impossible to preemptively block new spam without blocking lots of legitimate posts. Moderators and admins do discuss and implement ways to get rid of spam more effectively, but photo.net simply doesn't have the resources to monitor every forum every minute of the day in order to get rid of spam immediately.

 

". . . I just don't see the moderators actively implementing processes or procedures to safeguard the enjoyment of paying members."

 

I'm not sure exactly what you expect to see. Should we post public announcements about the exact procedures we use (so spammers can better figure out ways to counteract them)? Should we post a message every time we delete a spam message or spammer (which would clutter up the forums as much as the spam itself)?

We appreciate the work the moderators do, but if you look right now, the problem seems to escalating.

Perhaps NameMedia needs to employ more aggressive measures, even if it inconveniences new users from

setting up accounts.

<p>Mike-if you'd limit the number of posts to say 3 a day for new 'members', it would go a long way in resolving the problem. In the meantime, Calendar Events needs some attention. </p>

 

So there is no technical solution to this. It does not happen on any other of the several photo sites I visit. Why is that?

Perhaps there is a deeper problem of ownership under funding the purchase of more effective protective software. It goes along

with the failure to upgrade the site itself. Entropy is the gradual diminishing of a system leading to subsequent failure of a system

through lack of sustaining supportive input to that system.

<p>Signed in this morning and again another three advertising posts which have nothing to do with our community.</p>

<p>Admin needs to turn off calendar events as it is being obviously abused. Solution is strict monitoring with only admin allowed to use such posts.</p>

<p>I used to have a ton of spam in my inbox and I sorted the problem so I am sure this can be sorted. Other forums that I looked at yesterday ban such offenders for life why cant p.net do the same?</p>

<p>My subscription for this year is paid but it if continues to be abused then I will leave not renew and leave the forum.</p>

<p>Something has also just occurred to me. If it is that easy to abuse p.net in this way it must also be very easy to steal members images! Actively thinking of removing my images.</p>

<p>For subscribers information:</p>

<p>"Yet more of this. This morning 4 instances. If this continues I will remove my images as I do not consider them safe on photo.net. My subscription is paid up to April 17 but will not be removed. This is not what subscribers are paying for!"</p>

<p>Let's lighten up a bit on this, folks. Some of the spam advertising is quite funny - the titles, I mean. I would never open any of the files, but those titles, ha! I read them over my morning coffee and have a good laugh. Later in the day when I return to this site to check the day's posts, often as notall the crappy stuff has been removed. </p>

<p>Our poor moderators are doing their work diligently, but they have enough problems as it is. Can we maybe not add to their woes by ceasing to jump up and down and screeching,"do this or else!"?</p>

<p>Frank, well and good (heh) for you to say, ban the spammers for life - but who are these spammers, and what good would it do to ban them? Lock one out, they pop up again like weeds in my garden, under a dozen new, instantly made up names. </p>

<p>As an architect-photographer and not an IT expert, sadly I have no solutions to offer to this problem, except to commend the moderators for cleaning up the site so well and so quickly, as they do. </p>

<p>JDW</p>

<p>OTOH, just disabled "calender events" in the customize section; this spam wave has gone (for me). Wait for the next one :-)</p>

<p>I don't appreciate the spam either but I don't let it get under my skin. It doesn't hang around that long, & takes but a second or two to screen it out . I am surprised that some people at least find it really upsetting. For me the "deal breaker" on renewing my subscription was the decline in site activity, and so the opportunity to be involved. To my mind that's a lot bigger issue, and <em><strong>if</strong></em> the site's owners and managers are spending time considering how to address that instead of inventing ways of proactively preventing spam posts, then I for one would support that. </p>

<p>This is such a simple problem to solve. When someone starts a new account, limit the number of posts they can make that day. If one of the mods or users with spam-marking authority marks a user's post as spam, hide ALL of that user's posts from that day until they are reviewed.<br /><br />I just flagged three dozen or so brand new spam posts, most from the same (new, obviously junk) user. No legitimate new user would be harmed by allowed bulk-marking/filtering of new posts from a new user when a trusted mod/user flags one of that user's posts as obvious spam. No legitimate new user needs to be able to START multiple new threads back to back all on the same first day of their membership, minutes apart.<br /><br />Come on, PN admins - this is TRIVIAL programming stuff. </p>

By my count there are now 51 of these posts on the unified fotum. It is

obvious that photo.net is incapable or unwilling to act. The only solution is for

members not to subscribe and not patronise any commpanue that advertise.

<p>How about limiting the ability to post more than 1 a day to paid subscriptions? That would allow casual photographers to ask a question while preventing robospammers from filling the forums with junk. Would also give the admins a chance to classify new users as spammers.</p>

<p>All the post-limiting solutions require some programming. Given the age of the code, that may or may not be difficult.<br>

<br />What would make more sense is spam filtering software, and I have no idea why management doesn't use one of the readily available tools out there. I run a music review/photos site an pay $10 for spam filtering. So far, not one spam post has made it through and there have been no false positives. It should be possible.</p>