Welcome to Writers Talkback. If you are a new user, your account will have to be approved manually to prevent spam. Please bear with us in the meantime
TBH, that's what I've been doing. We know how to spot them. On a different note, apparently Viagra's in short supply at the moment. Perhaps we could source some and open up the market and make a killing?
Any potential new members will see nothing but spam posts and requests from us to bring in a system which stops so many of them being posted. I doubt many will be tempted to join.
They'd been removed by the time I posted my last comment –but another appeared immediately and they'll probably be another half page before I finish typing this.
Talkback hasn't been changed with the recent redesign - it must be coincidental, but I'll investigate some new measures (probably making it harder for normal people to sign up) that ought to stop it.
I've switched on an option to require new users to be manually confirmed before they can do anything but I'm not sure how effective it's going to be - unverified members were never supposed to be able to post in the first place. Also banned a bunch of users and deleted some posts but if there's anything else please let me know.
Thank you, Webbo. It is such a strange thing to do. Perhaps somewhere there is a school of computer nerds who are being trained to hack government files and one of the steps is invading websites and posting spam. This year they have a lot more members than usual...
Just in case anyone's wondering. Shutting the door on new arrivals (I think!) hasn't silenced spambots which were already registered, which is why we're still getting new posts popping up. So I'll just be playing whack-a-mole for a while.
Can’t the spammers already registered have their accounts removed?
They should be and on the first offence. Anyone whose first post is such obvious spam as we've been getting is never going to be a useful contributor to the site.
What steps are being taken to manually confirm all these new members are genuine, Webbo?
Comments
And still they come.
(That's ignore the spam, not Tam.)
TB's spam zapping man
Tam must feel like the boy with his finger in the dyke.
There's obviously something that needs attention to stop spam entering and it isn't being addressed firmly enough.
I hope it isn't the end of TB too.
Most of the first page is now spam posts.
Oh. Yes, we're okay.
Baggy, the spam has gone over onto page 2 now and it's not going to stop at this rate.