New Members

jabah013.307 · 2021-08-10 23:27:56

Hello,
I recently have been noticing that alot of the new members that are joining this forum are advertisers because their signatures show links to different websites they work at or people tell them to advertise here because of the numbers of members here.

Jai Ganesh · 2021-08-10 23:31:49

Hi,

Remedial action will be taken.

jabah013.307 · 2021-08-11 04:29:09

There is now a new advertiser who has joined this forum called verlevendigde.

zetafunc · 2021-08-11 11:21:49

Yes, most of these new members have unfortunately joined solely to advertise and we tend to remove them as soon as they post something. In the vast majority of cases these are fairly easy to spot as their e-mail addresses often show up on widely shared spam lists -- however, there are occasionally some that slip through the net particularly if they masquerade as genuine posters to begin with. We do try to deal with these at the earliest possible instance but naturally we cannot patrol the site every hour of the day (though we do our best!).

The forum's current infrastructure thankfully blocks most of this automatically -- for example, without the requirement to verify your e-mail address before posting we'd easily get over a hundred members flooding the forum within a day.

Bob · 2021-08-11 20:44:00

hi jabah013.307

Yes, you are right. It is a problem. We run the forum 'post-moderated'. That is, anyone can post and then mods or admin can decide what to do about a post. I regularly have to remove unsuitable posts.

The alternative is to pre-moderate. This would mean that every post goes, not onto the forum, but into a holding area where it can be checked first. This would slow up genuine 'conversations' between members so it's not how we work. Thanks for the info about verlevendigde. This person had made a signature link to a gaming website. I have deleted the member completely along with any posts.

If you spot any more there's a way you can point us to them. At the bottom of the post you will find a 'report' button. If you click that then the mods and admin get a report of your concern and can deal with it more quickly.

I used to spend time firstly banning the offender and then deleting all their posts, but I've now found it is much quicker to just delete the member as this takes care of the posts too.

I did wonder what to do about Dorkdiaries and Goodreads. I checked them out and they're ok so I've left them. But you should remember: the site is financed by carefully selected advertising on the main MIF site. That funding could dry up if it seems we are allowing free-loaders to put up adverts too. If it's running shoes then it obviously breaks our rules but sometimes it is harder to decide. Supposing a member asks for advice about what text book to get and someone makes a suggestion. Technically that's advertising but it was meant to be a helpful post. Not always easy to decide what to do.

Bob

jabah013.307 · 2021-08-11 21:52:23

Ok so should I change my signature and get off my website from the website thingy? It is Ok for me to delete them, as I don't really need those anyway. If those are called advertising for you, then I can get them off. It's OK .

Bob · 2021-08-12 19:21:48

hi jabah013.307

Both sites seem harmless to me so I don't think you need to change anything. Thanks for the offer.

Bob

Math Is Fun Forum

#1 2021-08-10 23:27:56

New Members

#2 2021-08-10 23:31:49

Re: New Members

#3 2021-08-11 04:29:09

Re: New Members

#4 2021-08-11 11:21:49

Re: New Members

#5 2021-08-11 20:44:00

Re: New Members

#6 2021-08-11 21:52:23

Re: New Members

#7 2021-08-12 19:21:48

Re: New Members

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