spam

[hjlong3]

Carolyn,
When you go on vacation, we need to have someone to clean the forum of spam daily as you do when you are in town. I can't believe the amount of trash that accumulates. Can we get a tighter firewall, or delete spam cookies periodically in order to avoid the amount of junk that accumulates.
Harry

[admin]

Dear Harry,

My adult daughter graciously agreed to monitor the website in my absence and delete spam postings. From what I found when I returned home from our two-week vacation, Jen did a good job. In Jen's defense, she works full-time and is not allowed to use her office computer for non-work-related purposes so she couldn't check the website during the day. As a result, I'm sure spam stayed on the website longer than it would have had I been monitoring it. As you can imagine, I check the website several times a day if I am home, which I usually am.

Please understand that the spam comes from registered forum members. Forums such as ours are open to everyone in the world. Until they post offensive and/or annoying material, there is no reason to ban people.

I believe this forum is a very valuable tool for the sharing of information about bells and I'd hate to see the forum discontinued. All web forums have a problem with spam and that's why the forums have moderators. I do my best to keep up with the monitoring of the website but, as with all volunteer situations, sometimes life gets in the way.

Your personal participation on the "Bell Talk" Forum continues to be very important. Your prior service as a member of the Internet Committee and your willingness to continue to give counsel is greatly appreciated. Please keep contributing!

With appreciation,
Carolyn

[Towerguy]

Is there a way to make posts disappear when a user 'reports' it? Maybe just make it invisible until an admin decides if it is appropriate or not. That way we can help you clean this stuff up! I don't know if that is even possible but it may be worth looking into.

[admin]

Dear Towerguy,

No, there is no way to make posts disappear when a user "reports" it. Just think of the fun people would have if they had free run over deleting (or hiding) other people's postings! Spam is a fact of life on Internet forums. Most spam is nothing but a nuisance to the reader and the administrator.

As adults (or minors who have been given parental permission to use the "Bell Talk" Forum), each reader must decide for himself whether or not he wants to read postings. You can usually tell by the subject if the posting is about something other than bells.

It is a rare day, indeed, that I don't check the forum at least once a day. I usually check it for spam five or more times a day. But every once in a while I find that life gets in the way of my volunteer work and the spam doesn't get deleted for several hours.

Hope this helps you understand the situation.

Admin (Carolyn)