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Spam robots are a constant problem, though they have been largely mitigated by our requirement that new registrations verify their email address. This catches nearly all of the attempted spam registrations.
However, we did find a potential problem in the recent past where a spam member joined, verified the email (perhaps manually, or perhaps with a better robot), and then started sending PMs to users. I get an email notification for every post on the forum, so if a spammer tries to make a public post, as soon as I'm awake and checking email I'm able to remove the post and ban the offender. (Incidentally, if a real user replies to the spammer, it makes it slightly precarious to not ban them as well, so the best action is to report a spam post rather than replying to it). But in the case where the spammer was sending PMs, there was no way for me to know that it was happening.
Thankfully, most of these folks are pretty easy to spot. They usually target For Sale or Wanted ads, and the messages don't seem quite right. But we didn't want to take any chances on letting them get better at what they do.
So as of today, any member must have at least 5 public posts before they are able to send PMs. This took a little doing on the back end, and hopefully I did it right. If you have more than 5 posts, you are now in an elevated user group, and if all went well, that elevated group didn't lose any privileges vs the default "beginner" group that everyone used to be in. If I did it wrong, you'll know before I will, so please let me know so that I can fix it.
If you are a user with less than 5 posts, you will be automatically upgraded once you have made 5 posts. If this bothers you and you are a real Bearhawk person, let me know and I'll move you manually. The intent is not to reduce the privileges of real people, but rather to try and add a layer to the spam trap.
Also, we have expanded the moderator staff by a few more folks.
However, we did find a potential problem in the recent past where a spam member joined, verified the email (perhaps manually, or perhaps with a better robot), and then started sending PMs to users. I get an email notification for every post on the forum, so if a spammer tries to make a public post, as soon as I'm awake and checking email I'm able to remove the post and ban the offender. (Incidentally, if a real user replies to the spammer, it makes it slightly precarious to not ban them as well, so the best action is to report a spam post rather than replying to it). But in the case where the spammer was sending PMs, there was no way for me to know that it was happening.
Thankfully, most of these folks are pretty easy to spot. They usually target For Sale or Wanted ads, and the messages don't seem quite right. But we didn't want to take any chances on letting them get better at what they do.
So as of today, any member must have at least 5 public posts before they are able to send PMs. This took a little doing on the back end, and hopefully I did it right. If you have more than 5 posts, you are now in an elevated user group, and if all went well, that elevated group didn't lose any privileges vs the default "beginner" group that everyone used to be in. If I did it wrong, you'll know before I will, so please let me know so that I can fix it.
If you are a user with less than 5 posts, you will be automatically upgraded once you have made 5 posts. If this bothers you and you are a real Bearhawk person, let me know and I'll move you manually. The intent is not to reduce the privileges of real people, but rather to try and add a layer to the spam trap.
Also, we have expanded the moderator staff by a few more folks.
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