Thanks Moderator(s) - Keep it up.

[nukecad]

It seems that the day to day moderation has improved vastly since New Year.
(But we'll see what the weekend brings).

A lot of the old spam threads/posts have now been removed as well.
I can still find quite a bit hidden in genuine posts, but nowhere near as much as there was.

Tip for moderator - use the searchbox to look for the words:
viagra, cialis, levitra.
'Canada' and 'canadianpharmacy' are popular with the pharma spammers, but 'viagra' would find most of those anyway.

There's quite a bit of essay writing spam found by searching for 'essay' - and a few found by searching for 'writing' but those are harder to pick out from genuine posts.
The blogs in particular seem to be full of essay writing spam. (Why are Blogs even enabled here anyway?)

I don't expect any feedback from the moderators, but it would be nice to know if reported posts are now being looked at and dealt with?
(It would be nicer still if the flood control could be turned down for reporting).

[beau]

Nuke, your email to the powers that be seems to have had an effect. Wonder if it will continue or is it just a flash in the pan after your message.
To have done all that deleting they must have set someone the task specifically.

[nukecad]

It wouldn't have been that difficult for someone with Supermod or Admin permissions, although it would have taken a couple of hours.

Most of the spam was from bots using the same account name for multiple threads/posts, so deleting just one of those posts in a certain way gives the option to delete all posts made by that account at once, and ban the account name.
(If a bot had made more than 50 posts you need Admin permissions to do that, Supermods can only delete up to 50 in one go).

Admins also have other tools they can use to delete multiple posts and/or multiple users at once, of course those need to be used with care.

[nukecad]

I also note that they are logging on outside of office hours, which is another long needed improvement.

[beau]

The powers that be have obviously taken notice of your email and are probably paying someone to keep an eye on the forum. I do wonder if staff were supposed to be moderating and just couldn't be bothered and have been hauled over the coals.

[ASI Industries]

Greetings Beau and NukeCad, I think it may also be due to my Official Complaint by snail mail, basically the previous moderator left DLF and DLF was in
Ostrich mode from 06 December until 02 January, also my account was set to "Require Moderation", which means all posts I create or edit are hidden
from normal Forum users rather than being set "Regular User" that everyone can see, my account has now been set "Regular User".

One issue remains "Out of office hours" moderation, I still feel DLF need to ditch their claim that "All our moderation staff are checked for criminal
convictions" or just change it to "All our Employed staff are checked for criminal convictions" and I still request that DLF elevate at least two regular
forum users as voluntary moderators after asking users if they wish to become a forum moderator for a trial period for say a month if they fail to
live up to DLF's expectations or are abusive they can be demoted to a basic user again.

[nukecad]

One issue remains "Out of office hours" moderation,

They are now logging on out of office hours, Dlfteam logged in at 9:52 PM last night.

We'll see what happens this weekend.

[Cornwall]

I don't understand why new members are allowed to join after office hours. Surely there is a setting that can used to approve membership by a moderator? Obviously no approval at weekends or after hours so problem solved. Or is that to simple?

[nukecad]

It is a bit too simple, and wouldn't stop spam.

Spambots will sometimes/often register and then lay dormant for weeks or even months before suddenly posting a rash of spam.

Blocking new registrations out of office hours will just drive people to other fora, when someone has a question/problem they want to register and post it there and then.
They will happily wait for an answer, but don't want to wait to ask their question.

Some sites moderate a new users first 10 posts, or even all posts from anyone, which is OK if you have 24/7 moderators to approve them but otherwise again drives people away.

Many other methods have been tried, but it's a balance between having a forum that's user friendly with some spam getting through (and removed) or having a forum that is not friendly so doesn't get used.
The only way to achieve that balance is to have good moderation.

The Piriform forum where I moderate gets between 5 and 50 spam posts made everyday, but we have a team of moderators on and off all day to remove them (usually within minutes of being posted) so very few members ever get to see a spam post there at all.
We currently have 9 trusted members who can moderate anywhere on the forum, we are spread around the world including Austrailia so there is always someone awake and usually one or more of us logged on at anytime. (There's no set hours but it works fine).
There are also 15 staff member accounts who participate to a lesser extent, (some like the software developers never post anything, they just read what problems are cropping up), but who we can flag or message for anything that needs Admin access or any questions that need an 'official' reply.

[nukecad]

Weekend moderation as well; thumbs up.

Let's hope it keeps up.