Spam on this forum

[Lars Erik]

Some a-hole calling himself Marc Schneider ph.D, is using this board to search for users registered here, then he links to this site and "offers" his services. He is a well known spammer according to a quick google search.

 

Here's one link to the many sites warning about him.

 

http://mycrapmail.blogspot.com/2008/02/contact-needed-global-vibration-web.html

[Henry Gelhart]

The world of Steadicam is soooo incomplete without a ph.D in the forum.

Just kidding. :angry:

 

No, Lars is totally right! Within the last few months, people use our forum to "hide" advertisements in their posts

(currently being discussed in a different topic I think) and now that... cr*p?

 

Hmmm... any opinions?

 

Prof. Dr. Henry Gelhart, MD, ph.D

[Kevin Andrews SOC]

Ok, I'll chime in here.

 

Lars is right about spam.

 

Also, there are so many inactive accounts with fragments of a name. A simple member search will show you how much junk there is.

 

Can the MODERATORS please delete these accounts that are unused or have partial names? It is the rule no?

 

I think the forum needs to be moderated a bit more, or else I fear it will go to crap.

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

"Can the MODERATORS please delete these accounts that are unused or have partial names? It is the rule no?

 

I think the forum needs to be moderated a bit more, or else I fear it will go to crap. "

 

Kevin, the Moderators do not have the power to delete or alter accounts - just posts. Sorry, but it is out of our hands. You can complain to our fearless leader, Tim, but that is about it. Also, keep in mind, that all three of us Moderators are working Steadicam Operators. This is a hobby!! Spam posts are deleted very quickly depending on our workload, etc. In short, we are trying.

[Lars Erik]

"Can the MODERATORS please delete these accounts that are unused or have partial names? It is the rule no?

 

I think the forum needs to be moderated a bit more, or else I fear it will go to crap. "

 

Kevin, the Moderators do not have the power to delete or alter accounts - just posts. Sorry, but it is out of our hands. You can complain to our fearless leader, Tim, but that is about it. Also, keep in mind, that all three of us Moderators are working Steadicam Operators. This is a hobby!! Spam posts are deleted very quickly depending on our workload, etc. In short, we are trying.

 

Alec, my post was in no way meant as a criticism towards the moderators. I know that you guys are doing this on your spare time. It was only meant as a heads up to everyone else on the forum. I got an e-mail from this so-called-doctor who directly linked to this site. That's all.

 

LE

[Kevin Andrews SOC]

"Can the MODERATORS please delete these accounts that are unused or have partial names? It is the rule no?

 

I think the forum needs to be moderated a bit more, or else I fear it will go to crap. "

 

Kevin, the Moderators do not have the power to delete or alter accounts - just posts. Sorry, but it is out of our hands. You can complain to our fearless leader, Tim, but that is about it. Also, keep in mind, that all three of us Moderators are working Steadicam Operators. This is a hobby!! Spam posts are deleted very quickly depending on our workload, etc. In short, we are trying.

 

Alec, my post was in no way meant as a criticism towards the moderators. I know that you guys are doing this on your spare time. It was only meant as a heads up to everyone else on the forum. I got an e-mail from this so-called-doctor who directly linked to this site. That's all.

 

LE

 

 

Right, and my post wasn't meant to be a criticism either.

 

But I keep seeing posts in the marketplace for very expensive items from names like "gfunk". Just starts to make this community more like a youtube comment thread more and more.

 

Alec, I do appreciate the fact that the moderators are working operators full time. I am just looking out for the forum because I have learned so much here, I wouldn't want to see anything happen to it.

[Charles Papert]

But I keep seeing posts in the marketplace for very expensive items from names like "gfunk".

 

Make my funk the g-funk

I wants to get funked up.

[Alec Jarnagin SOC]

Lars, Kevin - no offense taken. Just explaining the facts. The Moderators are as much Tim's guests as the rest of us - we just have the ability to move and erase posts. I'd love the ability to delete accounts, etc but alas it has not been granted.

 

Cheers!

[Tim Tyler]

My apologies for taking so long to recognize this thread! I never seem to check-in here as often as I should. Please don't hesitate to email or PM me anytime something needs attention.

 

Let me add that it has been our fearless moderators who have regularly kept this forum from becoming a mess. All salute the moderators!

 

Regarding Marc Schneider ph.D... I couldn't find his name in the member list? What is he up to?

 

Whenever a member uses a post's "Report" link to notify a moderator of an inappropriate post, I'll be notified the next time I log in but the forum won't email me a notification. If a mod flags a user as a spammer I will be notified by email and the spammer will be temporarily prevented from posting automatically.

[Tim Tyler]

Also, there are so many inactive accounts with fragments of a name. A simple member search will show you how much junk there is.

 

Can the MODERATORS please delete these accounts that are unused or have partial names?

 

The only safe way to delete members is to investigate each one individually to make sure they really deserve to be deleted. There are even some SOC members with improper display names. Figure about one minute per member, and we have 6000 members here. That's a time consuming task.

 

I've pruned the cinematography.com forum in the past by just deleting all members with zero posts. I posted a warning and created a temporary thread where inactive users could post at least once to avoid the mass pruning, and then a few weeks later I just deleted all inactive accounts. That worked well, but there were a few pissed off people who had long term inactive accounts and who missed the warning, perhaps due to an outdated email address. There are currently about 4000 registered users here who have never posted.