If you are likely to be offended by XXX-rated videos, don't go to Xxx Video. Yes I know that some people will now make a bee-line for it, but most people were likely to look at it anyway out of curiosity, thinking that it would be typical spam. It isn't. It contains explicit images which would not appear on any normal website, let alone a family-friendly one. If you're under-age, likely to be offended or just don't particularly want to look at porn images, don't go there.

This warning is also posted in the General Music forum where the Xxx Video was posted.

Thanks for warning us skylark.

I am pleased I had a look through the new posts before my 10 year old daughter did. This is not the place!!
Thanks

It really is disgusting how that kind of stuff is allowed on here.

I think (like I said in another post in general forum) that the moderators should put a 'stop' to posts with photo contents attached, then screen the posts with photos (not many of us put photos in posts) and if they are not offensive etc and are within reason then they can let them appear on forum.
I know this can be done as they do it in other forums.
We should (and I certainly want to) press them to do this for us.
Jo

Yes, or perhaps just stop threads with photos in the first post as the spammers always start a new thread!

Perhaps they just need to apply common sense, after all if they stopped threads with photos in then we couldn't post images from the forum concert. Perhaps if it's a newbie's first post with photo attachments then it should be blocked. I'm sure there must be a way of stopping first posts containing images.

There's no reason for a newbie to have any attachments - that would stop all the spam with links too.

Perhaps the ability to post links or pictures could come after 20 (or so) posts?

This seems to be the most effective solution and surely it's technologically possible? Do you want to contact Christine, notmusimum, and suggest it? If anybody on the forum disagrees, please say so....

That does sound an excellent idea.

Sounds good to me.
Like earning privileges for being a good user.

Now I'm pretty broad minded, but given the age of some of the regular contributors the images are pretty OTT. Could make a good biology lesson... Are the spammers turning this into a porn site?

Yes, stop attachments until you are an 'advanced member' (which does not take long only 60 or so posts, I have only been a member for a couple of months and took me maybe 5 weeks to reach that stage?)
Jo

It's 100 posts for an advanced member

I think the whole business of after 20 or so posts is a good idea.

Excellent idea - a serious poster won't take long to get 20, or 60, or even 100 posts.

I was one of the reporters of the thread and judging by the mod response, they were pretty horrified about it too.

I would have thought that most pests would not even bother to get past ten posts so twenty would seem very suitable to me.

I believe the Mods are looking at the Forum controls to see what they can do.

It's my belief the mods have relaxed the rules of late. I believe it used to be the case they approved accounts after registration. Seems to me now anyone can register and start posting straight away. If they have changed their methodology, perhaps they need to change it back again!

Depends what the conditions are for approving registration - is it always possible to spot a spammer from their username and info?

Clearly something has changed in the last week or two. We went months without any spam really and we've had a flood in the last week or so. No you can't always spot a spammer, but by having post-registration checks you can defeat most spambots. This stuff is posted automatically, it's not some loser doing it manually.

That's true, something has definitely gone floopy. I have no idea whether the registrations have stopped having to be approved recently, or if they stopped it a while back or what, I wonder if any newbies can clarify?? Or someone like Charlie's Aunt/appleblossom who is not so much a newbie but had a newer account?

Most of the attempted spam I get to the forum recordings site (which I manage to block through the email validation mechanism, yay) is from Russian email addresses. So maybe blocking .ru email addresses would help .

You'd think some of the names would ring bells if anyone's checking them manually - equitycreditt got through, for instance. A quick look at some of the names that are just being validated show mortgrate which should justify a closer look, not to mention whatmovesyounow.com. And SexyTeenParadise may be Grade 8 on his/her yukelele but it would be nice to think that somebody's making sure.... Surely the mods will have a closer look at this one under the circumstances


The mod team seems to be one short - Angharad Brown seems to have left. Maybe it was Angharad's responsibility to check into the registrations, or maybe the team is very stretched at the moment. So it's possible that they've switched registration from manual to automatic. It's just speculation but it could be one of the reasons...

I was going to say that maybe they need a larger mod team. I know some sites which have quite a large team of mods from all over the world, so there is likely to be one online most of the time, and therefore threads like this get removed almost instantly rather than siktting around for hours.

Because of yesterday, I think the mods are now looking into how newbies can be prevented from posting links until they've made 20, 50 posts or whatever. If they can do that, it should weed out all the spammers and hopefully solve the problem.

I can see that working. Some precautions need to be taken, and I can't imagine anyone sticking around trying to get to 50 post just so they can post some obscene images.

To me, preventing newbies from posting images is the only option.

Yes I agree, it would be obvious within a very short time whether somebody was a genuine poster or not. And they would need to be prevented from posting all links, not just images, otherwise they could post links to porn sites, which isn't quite as bad as yesterday but still undesirable all the same.

Links are bad, but perental controls can make it so children can't view the site. Unlike images for which there is no way of blocking them or preventing the child from clicking on them.