Cheap-Shot Advertising

[Trevlyns]

I notice a steady increase in “cheap-shot” advertising of non boating related items in these columns. The latest of these is the Nokia phone but I have also seen cigarettes and other stuff advertised.
Does anyone else take exception to this and can anything be done?
These are obviously placed by desperate sellers who can’t afford conventional advertising. Would you actually buy from such a guy?
Maybe a personal e-mail (click on the posters name for his personal profile) might help discourage this.

[westlawn5554X]

forum conduct thread... or bad rep or hail the moderator by reporting abuse thread.

[Jeff]

Unfortunately I believe this is one of th early "human virus" effects that will no doubt get worse for some time across the Internet. The problem, as I see it, is that the Internet has been brought to some areas where wages are extremely, extremely low. In time, this will be a wonderfully empowering tool that will elevate these areas to our standards of living (where things like morality to feel spamming is wrong can exist when we are not struggling to simply feed our family each day.) As a result, spam even with a very very low return rate due to its ugly form and unwelcome delivery makes financial sense so real scum*#* pay these people to post things like this on forums. The people doing this have all the time in the world to work at posting their junk with the hope of getting the 1 in 10,000 response that will bring in a few bucks. In a worse form, they attempt nigeria type scams in hopes of preying upon the gullible among the good folks of the world. The problem is that these are now people involved and not simple bots, and because of the Internet reaching very low-wage areas these people can put substantial human-intelligence and persistence into their "craft". First it was enough to require email verification before you could post. Then the spam/scammers put in the effort to setup email accounts and bots and click the links to verify. So we added the captcha image, which worked for a while since people can read a captcha image that is difficult for ocr to reliably decipher, so the spammers went to the easy target without such a device for a time. But then they hired, for pennies, people to actually sit at their screens and read the captcha images to create forum accounts, so they can break them up to the point where legitimate people simply can't read them either, and beyond since most legitimate people value their time more than these people in extremely poor areas can afford to. Then we added the no-spam question, but again, they have all the time in the world to try and beat it. One option would be to moderate all posts up until someone has x-number of posts, but I fear these same scammers would then waste our time more by posting non-content posts simply to boost their postcount so they can post the payload spam message - this has already been noted on other forums.

For now the best is to simply click the "flag for moderator" link if you see them to help me catch them as soon as possible; I will delete the advertising posts on sight. (thank you to all who have already spent time reporting such posts to help me be sure to catch them.) You don't have to enter any message unless it's not obvious what the problem with the post is - I look at all posts that are reported.

Future ideas:
1.) moderate everything until a new member is marked as "trusted"
2.) require a $5 payment to join the forum so hopefully spammers would move to forums that are easier targets
3.) come up with more frequent no-spam question changes - questions that are easy to answer for any boater but difficult to lookup on google by the spammers who have never been on a boat

[charmc]

Originally Posted by Jeff

For now the best is to simply click the "flag for moderator" link if you see them to help me catch them as soon as possible; I will delete the advertising posts on sight. (thank you to all who have already spent time reporting such posts to help me be sure to catch them.) You don't have to enter any message unless it's not obvious what the problem with the post is - I look at all posts that are reported.

Jeff,

Thanks for the insight. I'm not happy with any of your suggestions; no criticism of you, just don't like any of them, except maybe the first, but that's more of a load on you. Clicking to report them is probably best for now, IMHO. I really can't believe that there could be more than a 1 in 100,0000 or worse response, but I'm no expert on spam, and don't wish to become one.

[safewalrus]

As you know Jeff I'm not overfond of reporting but when it is blatant I will, and normally give you a reason. If your happy with this I'll continue as I am, maybe report a bit more frequently if you wish - what I don't want to do is overload you with work! afterall I guess running this is a hobby for you and hobbies are supposed to be fun! whilst not an expert is it possible to spam the spammers? you know like send them a complete load of drivel (I'm good at that!) or will this attract more of them like flys to 5H1T?? Just a thought!

Works with unsolicited advertising via snail mail - you send them the last lot that was sent to you (you don't pay the postage so they get double billed!)

[Trevlyns]

I'd agree with Charlie and Mike. I think it's adequate to have the "flag for moderator" just now Jeff.

Since I learned to use it - thanks westlawn5554X - it has been most effective!.

I think there are enough responsible people on this site to report obvious exploiters. Jeff is doing a sterling job in removing them pretty instantaneously. Well done lad!

[artemis]

Yep! Three cheers and a tiger.

THINK the pay option is best. I would not mind paying a fiver, this may be a hobby but hobbys can pay)
But spam(here) does not bother me, why should it, I do not have to open it or read it and there are far more annoying things on here, one learns to not 'sweat the small stuff"there are thread here that grown men try pass of as intelligent talk or even wit, and they make one want to puke, jus' ignore em. there are pople here who claim this and that, after awhile one just ignores those fabrications too
i have used this site to my advantage,(not pecunary) and I have paid folk who have talents that I do not have, to do work, So we all benefit
And since I redirected all my mail to my gmail acc. the spam is all caught and biffed into a folder
Gee I.d even pay a tenner, maybe a poll?

[Mychael]

I'd pay to use the forum. Poll is a good idea.

Mychael

[safewalrus]

I vote that Jeff immediately send his bill to Lazey and mychael who obviously own lots of money and want to pay for everything (I guess I may just add my bar bill fror the last couple of weeks to that, cheers fellahs)

Originally Posted by safewalrus;

I vote that Jeff immediately send his bill to Lazey and mychael who obviously own lots of money and want to pay for everything (I guess I may just add my bar bill fror the last couple of weeks to that, cheers fellahs)

at least we dont have to pay to park EVERYWHERE like you poor sods in that dump you call heaven"))

[Mychael]

Originally Posted by safewalrus

I vote that Jeff immediately send his bill to Lazey and mychael who obviously own lots of money and want to pay for everything (I guess I may just add my bar bill fror the last couple of weeks to that, cheers fellahs)

Being Aussies, a kind and generous lot, residents of the "Lucky country" then it is our duty to help the poor less fortunate among us. We must be kind to those decaying "fishy" types, trying to seek solice in the weak beer they are forced to consume.

Mychael

[Trevlyns]

Mychael, remove your Avatar forthwith, you cad!

[safewalrus]

Mychael, just a reminder about beer - the weakest beer in the world is without a doubt North American closely followed by Australian! The Septics admit they can't drink but the average low intelligent Aus tries to tell the worl how hard drinking he is - my dog drinks stronger beer than you normally have and still stands! so have a care when trying to slag people off (we may start talking about your Rugby Team otherwise!)

[safewalrus]

Lazey you ain't refering to good old blighty as heaven are you? only the illegals do that (no matter where they come from). Mind you I've never paid for parking in this Police State yet, nor do I intend to!