My Moan

[Marc Peters]

I am completely pissed off with having to delete anything between 10 and 30 new members everyday. It seems the latest Search Engine Optimisation technique is to spam forums with new members including a link to your site in the profile. The majority of sites are porn related.

Some are video editing related. But come on, those members that register and get a free link, don't the forums deserve something in return?

I may have to resort to vetting every single member before the sign up. This would mean typically a member will have to wait anything upto 12 hours before they can post. Seeing as the grand majority of members post once then bugger off, it will almost invariably mean the death of the forums, so I don't want to resort to that.

If anyone as any suggestions, please let me know. Until then, I have to spend my time deleting users rather than answering posts. If anyone has any PHP knowledge, they may be able to show me how to delete the user website function. But again, why should I ban people from posting their URL.

If anyone's curious, go to the Memberlist and arrange the members in descending date of joining order.

A bitter Site Owner.

[Alan Mills]

Marc,

I sympathise with you.

I've had a little play with PHP before and might possibly be able to help. What database is behind the scenes. I'm guessing it's MySQL. If so then

No doubt you have some admin functions screens available only to you as administrator. Maybe it's possible to add a couple fo admin functions (buttons?) to one of those screens and fire off som code along the lines of

1) Remove the URL from any users with less than 'n' posts; or
2) Delete any users singing up more than 'n' days ago with no posts.

Maybe this would help clear out the trash.

P.S. Think i hit the wrong button somewhere as this message looked like it posted itself while I was halfway through writing it.

[Marc Peters]

I'm normally pretty laid back about most things on the forum - I figure the more rules you impose, the more likely people will break them. Put simply, I don't have the time nor the inclination to delete URLs from posts for example And don't get me started on forums that don't allow signatures

Anyway, I've start to use MySQL admin to delete users with any "offensive" sites in their profile. Don't get me wrong, it's not the fact they're doing it, it's more that I have a finite amonut of server space which I'd rather went on people that actually contribute to the site.

Felt bad for moaning, but you gotta moan! By the way, you not interested in being a MOD millsy?

[Alan Mills]

Originally Posted by Marc Peters By the way, you not interested in being a MOD millsy?

... but I have neither the Parker coat, the scooter nor do I live in Brighton!

Seriously though, what's involved? Maybe better to email me direct.

[purejammy]

Quite right too! There is absolutely no need for any of that nasty rubbish on this forum.

I don't know any SQL, I don't know any PHP, but if you want any assistance deleting inactive accounts and rogue URLs then drop me an email.

[Marc Peters]

Cheers. It's more of a pain having to delete the users really. I've a feeling someone's running an automated script to sign up to the forums and add a URL to the profile - can't imagine someone would go the legnth of manually adding all those new users to be honest!!!

For the time being, I'll continue deleting new users that have clearly joined to increase their backlinks in google/other search engines...

A few measures I'd introduced to prevent have been circumvented already though!!!

[sara_dippity]

Have you asked the people at the phpBB forum about it? I know that a year or so ago I had a site with a phpBB up, and they were pretty helpful (as long as you tried to search the forum for an answer before asking).
Someone there might make a mod that would help when registering, or something similar.

[Marc Peters]

Yer, I spent about an hour trawling through previous postings but didn't come up with an answer. I'll have another search when I get the time, but will leave asking a question their until I know for sure it isn't covered elsewhere and I have the time to implement any changes advised .

May sound ironic, but I'm actually not much of a forum poster

[Alan Mills]

Originally Posted by Marc Peters May sound ironic, but I'm actually not much of a forum poster

Not so much ironic, more of an April fools gag eh? :lol:

[rgander1]

I can feel your pain and I appreciate your diligence in this matter. know that your efforts do not go unappreciated. Thank you