Seeing as how we just got attacked by an Apple Spammer.........
Are there any measures being taken to stop this? I mean its a small nuisance but annoying.
Thanks for your concern. This issue has been discussed quite a bit in the past on the open forums, and is certainly the topic of much discussion between the moderators and the administrators. With our recent changeover to the newest version of V-Bulletin, we've adopted the infraction system. One advantage to this system is that it now allows all moderators to issue immediate bans on the premise that the member is clearly a spammer. Due to the fact that spam bots generally will post multiple spam threads (sometimes in upwards of 6) before they are done, this new system has truly helped in getting rid of them as soon as they crop up.
Generally speaking, with all of the moderators and administrators that we have present on the forums, there is usually at least one online at any given time. However, because moderators have control only over their respective sections, threads can not always be deleted immediately though a ban has already been issued. For example, say that it's 12AM and a spam bot posts in the mazda6 section while only a mazda3 mod is online. The mazda 3 mod can issue a ban to prevent the spam bot from continuing, but that thread will stay until the mazda6 mod, a supermoderator, or an aministrator comes online. We have eased this process in the moderator/administrator section by creating a thread where all spammers and their threads are logged. This thread acts as an alert system the moderators (but mostly to the admins) who are capable of deleting them.
It's an annoyance to say the least, but we're doing our best every day. We have thrown around multiple options to try to alleviate the problem (including new member waiting periods, new add-ons), but we feel that making any of these changes would have a negative effect on the registration process and also the experience for new members. This is the last thing we want. Hopefully we'll come up with some new brilliant ideas in the future that won't create problems for new legitimate members, but for now, we're doing our best with what we've got.
