How nice to be popular

Category: Ramblings | Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 4:57 pm

Since joining the Stew I've noticed that our collective knowledge and money are very sought-after. I've had a giggle or two at some very obvious and not-so-obvious tries at snaring us, and I've felt sadness at some of the more veiled attempts.

The good thing is that the admin-mod-team very quickly take action and remove unwanted advertising. The bad thing is that when new people register, I've started wondering whether this is a genuine Stewbee or another scammer.

Being hopelessly naive, I always believe that people are fair-minded, and I get my nose punched over and over. Ah, well, maybe I should learn to be more of a sceptic, even if I don't want to.

Then it suddenly occured to me: Maybe the same thoughts were applied to me when I registered? Yikes!

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Frank wrote on Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:19 pm:

That's one of the growing pains of a community, once a certain group of people know that many other people are looking they'll do their best to get those eyeballs on their products.

The good news is that over time moderators develop a sixth sense about the intent of a new 'member', just ask Eileen and Toni. I can't count the number of times they have let me know that they suspect something is iffy about a new member and BANG along comes a spam post. The sense gets so refined that even a relatively normal looking username can set of alarm bell because it just doesn't look quite right :)

Still though we like to maintain an innocent until proven guilty stance. Sometimes I'll jump the gun a bit but it's to be expected with the volume encountered.

But you should have been around a few months back before I made a change to the spam detecting. The amount of p0rn posted was extreme. And that included explicit photos in posts!

// Frank

Droopy wrote on Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:29 pm:

*shock* I'm very glad I'm not a forum admin! How annoying, to try and create a nice, friendly community and then having to become suspicious about new members. I'm thoroughly impressed by your fast-sweeping brooms, though. Well done.

toni wrote on Thu Oct 25, 2007 5:52 pm:

Those p0rn pictures were the worst, my fingers couldn't work fast enough to report and delete the ones I caught....don't miss those at all.
And the two college students on winter break with nothing better to do than play pranks on us last year.