Spam Filter

[Skylark]

I spent like a half hour finding a soy-free fish oil for someone. (I wanted to see if I could do it. )

I gleefully posted the link, only to have the spam filter clobber it.

I had to "work around" the spam filter by searching for the same product other places. I strongly prefer to post a link since not everyone is comfortable with search engines. Not only did the spam filter kill my first attempt to show the product, but I couldn't link to it at Amazon either. I understand needing spam filters, but this is interfering with my ability to communicate effectively.

Is there some way to allow regular, non-spamming posters freedom to provide information on products at major websites like Amazon?

[RiceGuy]

I'm with you on the idea that those of us whom are trustworthy should have such a privilege. But if I were to guess, I'd say the board software doesn't have that capability.

[Jestgar]

It's not that you spam, it's the companies. When their name appears in a forum, someone appears to begin spamming that forum with all kinds of adds to the company. I don't know if they are actually employed by the spamming company, or just what the deal is, but that's the reason we don't allow links from them.

[ravenwoodglass]

Perhaps simply give the folks the name of the product and tell them to use a search engine to find out where it is sold. Most are savvy enough to know how to do a search in google, yahoo etc.

[Skylark]

It's not that you spam, it's the companies. When their name appears in a forum, someone appears to begin spamming that forum with all kinds of adds to the company. I don't know if they are actually employed by the spamming company, or just what the deal is, but that's the reason we don't allow links from them.

Really? I can see that from unscrupulous, smaller companies but I'm really surprised that Amazon would do that.

If it's bots spamming, there are plenty of things that can be done to stop them.

Open Original Shared Link

If it is a human, obviously you would disable the account that spammed and the moderation queue would catch posts on resubscription. The only thing that would be tough to catch is a person who signs up, posts legitimately for a while, and then spams but I've run two large and active discussion boards and I've never seen that happen. Spammers are pretty much always hit-and-run.

I assume you're keeping phpBB updated to keep security holes patched. Otherwise there will be ongoing issues with spam and various other attacks. I had scary stuff happen with a Mambo installation once where I missed an update.

[Jestgar]

There is spam, and we do catch it, and there are people who post innocuous things until they are no longer moderated and then start spamming. The gluten-free community is small enough that it's worth the extra effort to try to entice people to buy from your website. Amazon may be a legit company, but their advertisers may occasionally sub out to people who aren't so legit. And Amazon hosts a number of other companies who use the big A to do business. It's worth their effort to promote their products, and it looks exactly the same as if it had come through Amazon.

We've had people spamming for their books, that are being sold there, trying to buy good reviews to boost their sales, etc.

It's really sad, because I like Amazon and I do a lot of shopping there. It would be nice if they had a way to police their subcompanies, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Anyway, to get around the filter, add spaces:

amazon . com

and tell people to remove the spaces after they cut and paste.

[Skylark]

Wow. Just wow. I guess the boards I've run have not been as attractive to spammers as this one because I've never had to deal with anything other than hit-and-runs. I see why you've resorted to munging links.

Thank you very much for the tip about spaces.

[Jestgar]

I'd say about a quarter of the invisible posts I check are spam. I may see more than some other mods because I'm on really early in the morning, but there are phases where almost all new posts are spam.

[Scott Adams]

This only happens to companies that have directly spammed this forum, and yes, Amazon is one of them, and I caught them myself doing it multiple times directly from their headquarters (according to the IP addresses). So yes, they too are banned here. If they can't obey the rules they agreed to when they joined, they are banned. Let this serve as a warning to other companies. We provide a legitimate way for them to advertise here to our members, but unfortunately many go with the cheaper, "free" way of marketing and ignore rules. Many outsource to SEO firms in China, India, etc., and the people they pay to go into forums like this get them banned.

Take care,

Scott