I deleted a few hundeds 'members' yesterday. Pruning. Trying to fight back the riff-raff.

If you drop a link to this thread, I will be glad to swoop by and delete any spammers.

@ Rad

Thanks for this thread. We have had our share of "robot" spammers lately with irrelevant text and a link to a web page.

Is it possible to delete the posts as the text can be misleading?

Brian wrote on Oct 5^th, 2011 at 3:40pm:

Is it possible to delete the posts as the text can be misleading?

Sure, if you point them out.  Deleting the posts is what NightOwl, Christer, and I have been doing as a practice.  We only leave the post and remove the links if the post has information actually relevant to the thread, which is pretty rare.

Yeah, we can delete everything we want.

@ Rad


Quote:

I deleted a few hundeds 'members' yesterday. Pruning.

Some questions:

1.  What criteria are you using to delete a member?  I don't know if this member, Carol Jonson, deleted herself or if you deleted her--but, she posted a reply on Oct. 4 to a thread, and is now an *Ex Member*-- http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1316931845/4#4

How are you deciding who's no longer active and deletable?

2.  Are you deleting the *Banned Spammers*?  If you do that, does that allow the spammer to now use their email, user name, and/or their banned IP address(es) once again to access the forum--or does the banned information remain and continue to prevent the usage of their banned info?

NightOwl wrote on Oct 7^th, 2011 at 9:08am:

Are you deleting the *Banned Spammers*?If you do that, does that allow the spammer to now use their email, user name, and/or their banned IP address(es) once again to access the forum--or does the banned information remain and continue to prevent the usage of their banned info?

It's actually probably better if the banned information goes away.  The spammers are mostly using throw-away email addresses and dynamic IP's.  They only have that IP for a few days and then it gets recycled and someone else has it.  So, most likely the spammers no longer have that IP, and whoever does have it now is banned from our forum.  It might makes sense to clean that all out once in a while so we aren't banning too many innocent IP's.

I suspect the two Carols are the one spammer.

Wing is quite blatant.

@ Brian


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I suspect the two Carols are the one spammer.

Maybe, but they were two different members.


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Wing is quite blatant.

Wing?  Wing who? (He's gone!)

I deleted another crapload.

My method > delete first, ask questions later. =)

Wing is gone. Everybody wave, "Adios, Wing."

@ Rad


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My method > delete first, ask questions later. =)

Now, that's *tough love*!

lishui needs the chop.

@ Brian


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lishui needs the chop.

The deed is done   8-)  !

NightOwl wrote on Oct 24^th, 2011 at 8:05pm:

The deed is done

[smiley=smiley.gif]

Hasta la vista, baby.

@ Rad

An unintended consequence:  if you delete an old member--you can no longer *search* for any of their posts if they had made any! 

Also, members who choose to become *ex-members*--the search function also fails to find any of their posts--even though their old posts are still present!  The forum's software for its *search function* is not as robust as I would like it!

It is unfortunate. I'd like to read some of Nigel's posts again.

Nigel may not post, but he still frequents the forums. Every once in a while I get an email with a link here, referencing a post he found interesting, with commentary along with his characteristically illuminating insight.

And, of course, whenever I have a question about programming, I shoot off an email to New Zealand.

I'm convinced there's nothing he doesnt know about.

I even send him questions about the European debt crisis. (Why doesnt the ECB print money like the US Fed?)

Oh, btw, I just deleted another krapload of riff-raff.

@ Rad


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Oh, btw, I just deleted another krapload of riff-raff.

Oh, dear--another group of *former* members whose posts we can no longer search for in the future!


Quote:

An unintended consequence:  if you delete an old member--you can no longer *search* for any of their posts if they had made any!

The point I was trying to make is *maybe* we shouldn't delete members just because they haven't posted anything recently--we loose the *search function* for all *ex-members* and deleted members!

NightOwl wrote on Nov 9^th, 2011 at 9:51am:

The point I was trying to make is *maybe* we shouldn't delete members just because they haven't posted anything recently--we loose the *search function* for all *ex-members* and deleted members!

it's late and i may not be thinking clearly .. but if they havent posted anything, then there's no old posts to search .. no?

am i missing something?

@ Rad


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but if they havent posted anything

Oh, so if that's the criterion you are using to delete--then that will have no effect on the search function--I didn't know that was what you were using to decide on deleting.

As an aside, it seems like there is big increase in the number of *Pre-registered Members* waiting to validate their registration--it's been in the 30-60 range lately.  I remember only seeing 4-5, at most, in the past.  We sure are not seeing that many new users posting to forums.  Not even spammers.

Wonder what that's all about?!

that's the main but not sole criteria.

i also look at how long it has been since they logged on and the number of posts.

i generally delete those with only 1 or two posts, especially if they havent logged on for a while.

and their user name. user names such as "BuyViagraUK" get deleted without much deliberation.

seems that today, after i deleted a couple hundred, they are back to re-reg.

maybe these are auto-bots.

not sure, cuz i required *two* emails handled to reg.

bots are very smart these days.

@ Rad


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seems that today, after i deleted a couple hundred, they are back to re-reg. maybe these are auto-bots.

Interesting.

If these registrants are not planning on posting--well, what's the point of registering?  Weird!

Quote:

seems that today, after i deleted a couple hundred, they are back to re-reg.

Those that have been banned, usernames, email addies and IP-addresses, do they get "unbanned" when being deleted?

i dont ban.

the ban function seems useless.

i just delete.

When someone posts a spam message or irrelevant message, I move it to the Recycle Bin and ban the member. Do you mean that we should delete the member and not ban? Do I as a moderator have that "power".

@ Christer


Rad wrote on Nov 13^th, 2011 at 9:25pm:

the ban function seems useless.

I'm not sure I agree!


Quote:

I move it to the Recycle Bin and ban the member

That's what I do.  My reasoning--if you ban the *user name* and the *IP addresses* used by that user--then that person has no access to revisit the forum.  My thought is that if you simply delete someone shortly after they have posted spam--they may still be interested in attempting again--and if they were simply *deleted*, they then can probably re-register quickly--might even be able to re-use that *user name* (but, I don't know that for sure--I need to do some testing to see what happens).  But, if their IP is blocked--then they have to jump through more hoops, and I'm hoping that make the effort less worth it.


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Do you mean that we should delete the member and not ban?

You have my answer above, but Rad may feel differently about it!  I will do some testing to see how the forum software functions when a user is *banned* vs *deleted*.


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Do I as a moderator have that "power".

I think you do.  It's been awhile since I looked at that, but I think all the moderators can delete both individual posts or threads (if you use the *Delete* function--that post or thread is *gone*--it does not go to the *Recycle Bin* where you have the option to *Move* it back, if you later decide it was *Moved* by mistake) as well as *users*.  But, I'll have to re-visit the forum *Help Files* to refresh my memory.

NightOwl wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 8:37am:

My thought is that if you simply delete someone shortly after they have posted spam--they may still be interested in attempting again--and if they were simply *deleted*, they then can probably re-register quickly

my thot is that .. if they are spamming .. they are probably interested in the google effect .. where search engines 'award' (for lack of a better word) merit to sites who have many incoming links.

But if they find all their spamming posts deleted and they would have to re-register (including double-emails) .. just to probably AGAIN have their posts deleted .. then I think they would feel inclined to move onto greener pastures. No?

You guys are certainly free to handle however you like.

It has been a while, but I recall trying to ban some nasties and the thing didnt seem to work. Maybe more recent versions work better.

I go into the "Admin " section to delete their @sses.

A slight misunderstanding:


Quote:

It's been awhile since I looked at that, but I think all the moderators can delete both individual posts or threads (if you use the *Delete* function--that post or thread is *gone*--it does not go to the *Recycle Bin* where you have the option to *Move* it back, if you later decide it was *Moved* by mistake) as well as *users*.

I meant deleting the member after moving the post to the Recycle Bin.

Quote:

You guys are certainly free to handle however you like.

I don't know the first thing about the "google effect " and what is good or not for RADIFIED but maybe we can agree on a procedure that we all use.

@ Christer


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"google effect "

I think that's the latest way to try and *promote* a website--the more links to the spammer's website that Google's Bots sees referenced on your site, the higher the spammer's ranking becomes on future Google Searches--doesn't help your website (Radified)--helps the spammer's website.


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but maybe we can agree on a procedure that we all use

Well, I've had no problems with the *Move* function, and the *Ban* function.  Personally, I think that's the best way to deal with *possible* spammers--it could happen that someone makes a poor judgement and places a *spam message* on their post--we can always *bring them back* if they are just *banned*.  But, *deleted* means they're gone.

So, I'm more than happy to *Move* and *Ban*, and let Rad do the *Deleting* as he sees fit!  That does make more work for Rad, of course, and if he requests that we start *Deleting* all members who have spammed, then that will be easy to do as well!

Rad?

NightOwl,
I agree with that procedure.

yeah, i think the main thing is to remove the offending post(s) .. by any means necessary.

my standard procedure is:

go to the "View/Delete Members" page in the Admin section,

> put check-mark in box labeled "Reverse Results" (while viewing in default "by date regstered")

[ this brings up all the most recently registered members ]

> at bottom of page > next to words "Check All:"

select: > "Equal To" + "0" + "Number of Posts"

> click button labeled "Delete Members" and confirm deletion.

Voila. Adios amigos.

a new page will load automatically with the 20 most recently registered members.

repeat above until all are 0-posters are gone.

i should learn how to modify the defaults i select so that i dont have to reselect for every page.

@ Rad


Quote:

my standard procedure is:

It's been so long ago, I couldn't remember what the forum settings are!  So, I did a little research:

All the moderators are in the *Global Moderator* category.  (By the way--I could find *no* help files anywhere that explains what the available function are for a simple *Moderator*!)  And, there is a section in the Admin area where you set the *permissions* for the Global Moderators.  The only permission that's set is *Banning IP Addresses*--that also includes banning User Names and Email addresses.

So we would have to change the settings for the *Global Moderators* if *deleting* of members is going to be done by the Global Moderators.

On another subject--while looking up the settings for the Global Moderators, I stumbled upon a setting for the *Recycle Bin*--I originally thought when I *Deleted* a post from the forum, it went to the *Recycle Bin*, but some time ago I discovered that the *Delete* was permanent--it was completely wiped away!

Well, there appears to be a check box to control that function--if checked, the deleted post is gone completely, but, if unchecked a deleted post goes to the Recycle Bin. 

Did you change that setting?  As I said, I thought in the past that when I deleted a post, it went to the Recycle Bin  (and that would be my preferred setting--just in case I make a mistake!  I did make such a mistake one time and deleted a whole thread by El Pescador, when I was trying to delete just an individual post!).  But, if your preferred setting on this is *immediate, complete* deletion, then I will just use the *Move* function which gets around the issue.

No. I've never touched that setting.

btw - i just (now) deleted ~150 "members".

in case anybody is keeping track.

20 members per / page .. 7 or 8 pages worth.

where do they come from?

"ireland ugg boots"

just deleted another 140 (or so).

lotsa "ugg boots"

deleted another hundred.

deleted yet *another* hundred.

@ Rad


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deleted yet *another* hundred.

You're a busy man!