I reported in a previous post that when logging on a few days ago, I had to scroll down through a whole page of these ‘come and watch football here’ posts, to find one…one…post pertaining to English grammar or syntax.
I see that one Moderator - beeesneees - has been in the forum, yet these have not been removed.
I can only surmise that these are a source of revenue for the site.
Commercialism over-rides professionalism.
I’ll check back in a week…otherwise, it’s 23 skidoo for me.
Hi Bazza, removing the spam manually is not easy. A spam bot can easily post dozens of messages in one go. I’ve talked to our web developers again to see what we can do about the problem. It’s definitely not a source of revenue for us – it’s just a big threat. Many thanks for your patience. Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Weather forecast on radio[YSaerTTEW443543]
I did not remove the spam because I did not have the spam removal tool available to remove it. I was not using a PC so did not have Internet Explorer (which is the only browser that works to remove it).
Even if I had been on a PC, to be honest I probably wouldn’t have had the spare time over the last week to copy and paste the links from my usual browser to Internet Explorer, log on to the spam tool and go through removing all the spammers, especially given the length of time posts take to go through sometimes at the moment with all the bad gateway errors.
As for it being a source of revenue, I do hope the comment ‘commercialism overrides professionalism’ was aimed in my direction - I get absolutely no revenue from being on this site, so it would not be a moneyspinner from me.
My presence here is as voluntary as yours is, Bazza.
I too am completely sick of the forums being overrun by spam.
You’d think that the writing’s been on the wall for long enough to have put something in place I still don’t see why new posters should not be placed on some form of moderation. It has to be worth a try.
The anti-spam tool doesn’t work for me any more, so even at times when I have IE and the time to spare I can’t do anything about it.
Wow, at the moment there is ONE genuine post on the first page in the grammar section of the forum, and then there is nothing else to be seen but spam on the next five pages!
Well, something needs to be done, and fairly soon, else the forums seem doomed.
‘Doomed’ seems a bit strong! These posts are sounding a bit like injured pride. Live and let live.
It’s not too strong at all. It wouldn’t be the first website that’s met it’s demise thanks to this amount of spam.
That really is displaying a rather ignorant attitude when it comes to the power of spam when it takes hold of a website.
We are going to upgrade the anti-spam feature and plan to have the problem solved by the end of this week. I’d like to apologize for the inconvenience.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Evening traffic update on local radio station[YSaerTTEW443543]
I find that response completely astonishing. You also like to invite people in to shit in your living room do you?
I’ll ignore your ridiculous comment as I assume you have entirely missed my point. I am referring to your reaction and that of others as if spam is a personal insult to you. Clearly it is irritating and undesirable but I am simply asking for a little patience in allowing the admin to rid the site of it. Take a leaf out of the late Michael Winner’s book and ‘Calm down’.
“Live and let live” sounds to me exactly like you are saying “I don’t mind about these spammers; let them do as they wish”, which is why I was astonished.
Totally misread on your part.
The reaction indicates that we, at least, are concerned about the future of the site.
How many more years would you like?
So virtuous, so smug, as ever.
Tomorrow Zfort is going to install a new anti-spam system and I agree, it’s high time we got rid of this problem. I’m sorry that it has been taking so long.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: University employee is asking visitor to move vehicle from fire zone[YSaerTTEW443543]
So wrong, so badly judged. As ever.
Good to hear. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for it.
Indeed. Looking again now at the “English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms” forum, the first four pages are solid spam. This has been a regular occurrence lately. Despite some people’s apparent lack of great concern or urgency, it seems to me that the forums cannot survive in such a state. People will simply give up and go elsewhere.