WTF is now an "nofollow" forum

[Steve]

Its clear that we have spammers signing up all day every day so we need to make drastic changes.

There is just too much spam , link dropping and running up post counts with pointless posts all over the forums right now.

Due to all of this spam going on, we have made the switch so all links to external sites are now "nofollow" (with a couple exceptions of course).

This should stop all of the nonsense posts and get the community back to basics. Sorry to burst that bubble you crazy "spammers" but we need to take our community back and enabling you to continue is not happening. Hope everyone can see this had to be done to get WTF back to good interaction between its members.

[BiologyWebmaster]

This should stop all of the nonsense posts and get the community back to basics. Sorry to burst that bubble you crazy "spammers" but we need to take our community back and enabling you to continue is not happening. Hope everyone can see this had to be done to get WTF back to good interaction between its members.

I had no idea that WebTalkForums was even a DOFOLLOW forum

Due to all of this spam going on, we have made the switch so all links to external sites are now "nofollow" (with a couple exceptions of course).

Am I one of these exceptions? Do Moderators have the ability to post DOFOLLOW links?

Much Thanks,

BiologyWebmaster

[ArwenTaylor]

In my humble opinion, that's not going to stop spammers. Most blogs are NoFollow but they still get tons of people spamming them. They even get around Captcha programs by hiring cheap labor and having them manually post comment and forum spam.

It's isn't always about SEO and backlinks. These spammers are sending out thousands of posts all across the internet. They are banking on the 1-2% of people who may click a link and purchase something. At a 1,000 pieces of spam a week, that's 40 people a month making a purchase.

I hope it works, though.

[CountryBoy]

This seems to be increasingly the way of the webmaster world.
Anything that helps to keep spammers and link droppers at bay can only be a good thing.

[Steve]

I had no idea that WebTalkForums was even a DOFOLLOW forum

Am I one of these exceptions? Do Moderators have the ability to post DOFOLLOW links?

Much Thanks,

BiologyWebmaster

The staff will be the only allowed do follow links so far. This may change with special usergroups made for the elite usrgroups we have but that is still under a big maybe. Well discuss it more in the staff section on what is best for WTF.

[benjaminp]

Great idea. Another one I'd like to throw out there is moderated first posts. I know there's a plugin for other forum software, so I'm sure there's one for vB.

Basically a user is able to post on signup, but those posts are only visible after a moderator has gave them the all clear. It wont stop the spam, but it'll stop users from seeing it.

My forum pales in comparison to WTF, but I still get a lot of spam bots trying to signup; not one has been successful. I'm not sure what systems you use, but stopforumspam has proven itself to be excellent at stopping spammers for me. Combine that with a captcha and some signup questions and I'm spam free.

Persistent spammers will always get through I fear, but at least this will deter the less determined ones.

[Steve]

Great idea. Another one I'd like to throw out there is moderated first posts. I know there's a plugin for other forum software, so I'm sure there's one for vB.

Basically a user is able to post on signup, but those posts are only visible after a moderator has gave them the all clear. It wont stop the spam, but it'll stop users from seeing it.

My forum pales in comparison to WTF, but I still get a lot of spam bots trying to signup; not one has been successful. I'm not sure what systems you use, but stopforumspam has proven itself to be excellent at stopping spammers for me. Combine that with a captcha and some signup questions and I'm spam free.

Persistent spammers will always get through I fear, but at least this will deter the less determined ones.

We use those and some. We get hit hard cause of the lack of attention the forum was getting. We moderate a lot of posts that the regular members don't get to see. The staff has been working really hard on getting it under control. Thanks for the suggestions.