Craigus

I think that should be mandatory on all internet forums. You can also make sure vBulletins registration image verification is enabled. This will stop bots from registering new accounts here.

Just a thought..

Another thing that can be useful is for members to use the built in 'report this thread' button. This will send the admins and email regarding the thread/post in mention and might make their life a little easier.

**Edit**

I just noticed there is 1,194 members and only one moderator? Guys, get some moderators in here!

**Edit

Cheers.

nuhawk

What I think we have been experiencing lately is not a barrage of bots but those of warm, paid, bodies that register on our site to post this ****. Imagine a sweat shop with a thousand workstations in it. Image that the boss says to one employee, "Pull a Google search for every 1957 Chevy Enthusiast Forum and go register at each of them and invite them to visit our "site". It's a game of numbers and it's big business. To the next employee he says, "Go find all the 1956 Chevy . . . " and on and on. At the end of the day the **** sites have new members and they could give a hsit where they get them - even from sites like ours! Besides the bot software that we have in place the only way to police this hsit is to have full time mod presence so these posts and posters can be shot down immediately. Even then one or two are going to get by. That's when the wakeup call from the group helps the mods out. Just my .02

Craigus

Don't get me wrong, I realise that not all of these spammers are bots but leaving the forum registration open with no email or image verification is just asking for trouble.

I run a few large forums myself (wont advertise here) and understand the pain these narrow minded fools spamming the boards cause the admins and members for that matter. I think the best way to weed them out is more moderators. Every site I have setup or ever been a part of offers around one moderator per 100-200 members (depending n how active the forums are), this seems to be a good ratio.

Remember, this is just my 2 cents, the last thing I want to do is come here sounding like I'm telling the admins how to run the site. Just some friendly advice from a fellow VTR rider.

Cheers.

nuhawk

I think we're saying the same thing. I think like Greg says we'll just have to ride it out until they make some changes.

Craigus

For sure..

Damn, I just noticed my posts have been deleted I guess I should have expected to loose 2 posts replying to spammers.

nuhawk

Thread jack - look 22 - I'm up to 405!

Hawkrider

Let me address a few issues here. The spammer we got today registered today and posted the spam. The server is XXX.mail.ru. That's another one I'm after right now. The image verification IS in place. I tested it. Craigus, when you registered a couple days ago was it not there? BTW, I added 2 to your post count.

I'm probably going to go to a completely manual registration process if I can get a reply back from the owner. This is getting on my nerves, as I'm sure it's getting on yours too.

As for moderators, we only really have 473 active members. I consider an active member to be one who has had activity (logged in) in the last 30 days. That's probably a higher value than normal since I recently sent out an email to all members regarding the SHOG Rally.

We have two moderators. One is deployed. I am the other. For quite some time we had none at all. Compare this to 1000RR.net which also has two moderators. They have 6720 members and 586 of those have over 100 posts. SuperHawkForum.com has 1187 members and 74 members with post count greater than or equal to 100. BTW, 17 of these haven't logged on in a month. Basically what I'm trying to say is that this is a small forum. It originated a few years ago because we had an email list several hundred strong and it went away. This forum was born of that, and when it was started had no moderation at all, just a basic set of guidlines - not even rules, per se. This lasted for a few years until we started having some problems due to a server move, at which time I became moderator. About a month ago I was upgraded to Admin which has significantly more useability with vBulletin. That is where we sit.

The forum members here have always been self-moderated for the most part. I can remember a handful of times where there was a heated argument but they took it offline on their own or were asked by other members to take it offline. Sometimes, hell most of the time, they just agreed to disagree. BTW, this is the way I intend to keep it. I wanna make it easier on you guys if there are any problems and I also would like to expand a little. I've started with the SHOG Rally and have added more features to the forum (like smilies ) and the member locator, and would like to soon add a sponsor or two to help with the income. Currently the only income we get is when users click on the Google advertisements at top and bottom of this page. Maybe we can arrange some group buys as well in the future. I'm not moving too fast on any of this because it takes time and coordination and I don't want to move too fast because of the "forum climate" and some people just don't like to change too quickly. I understand that.

The future of this forum is solid. As long as we have new members joining and we can keep most of the old members around then the climate will stay the same and we will continue to see our Superhawk Family grow. [Shameless plug for the Rally] Putting faces to the names and riding and hanging out together will only bring us closer together.

Craigus

Thanks for the info.. It's nice to know the sites history as I'm only such a n00b here.

I agree the self moderated sites are always the best. I'm the admin of a small Aussie photography community and I can't ever remember having to do any moderation. 8-)

As for the rally it's a shame I'm so far away, I'd love to get out with a bunch of VTR's w00t! :-x

Oh.. and thanks for my posts back..

Cheers.

Otto Man

Greg, if you feel like you could use another moderator, feel free to let me know. I'm a moderator on jeepsunlimited.com, with 71,000 members, and 4wd.com with 9,100 members. It kills me to see the spam messages pop up, and the only thing I can do is report the post. Most of the bot's usually come in spurts, so hopefully this wave will end soon.

John

Hawkrider

Yeah, for some reason it seems like they've targeted us for the new year. I think maybe it was removing the image verification for a short time that did it. I dunno. All I know is that it is in place now which means there are losers sitting in a room and subscribing to forums such as ours and getting paid (?) for it. It just baffles me....

I deleted another 5 new spammer members today. Dunno if this is as bad as it gets or if it will get worse before it gets better.

marmaladedad

Well, it's just the new year...maybe the spammers made a resolution to spam as much as possible.

shayne

Hey Craigus,

Mate like you I received a rally invite, and thought "if only". It would be nice to meet some US owners.

For meeting a group of Aussie VTR owners, log on to "www.ozfirestorm.com.au". We have a very active group of members, and no doubt you can meet a few in your area.

Cheers,
Shayne

Craigus

Yeah, I'm a member there and have been for some time. I just cannot stand the hideous forum engine nor that skin that will not scroll correctly so i tend to not bother visiting. :sad:

Cheers.

Hawkrider

Just an update:

I've made several changes to the vBulletin options and we should see significantly less spam from now on. Please report any posts that might pop up.