"Fake" members

I've already answered this question in private but for anyone else who was wondering. The obviously made-up names in the members list belong to spammers who've been banned from the board and had all their posts deleted.

So why are they still listed? This subject comes often up in Q&A sessions with the authors of the software which powers these boards and the official answer is "They are still members even if they are banned members" which is total cobblers to me but I'm afraid there is little I can do about it.

There are ways of deleting and blocking spammers totally from a board but they also make it difficult for genuine posters to sign up so that is not an option at present but the situation is under constant review.

Dutchman,

Looking down the list of members I see that there are several "interesting" web links attached to the banned members details. Are you able to remove them at all? - Just curious.

FWIW, I moderate a site that attracts a lot of these spammers, we got round it by putting very heavy filters on the posts. It does occasionally cause a false alarm, but it's far better than trawling through posts and seeing what's acceptable and what isn't. Some can be quite clever in how the carry out these "attacks".

I found this site http://www.stopforumspam.com/ very useful.

Dutchman,

Looking down the list of members I see that there are several "interesting" web links attached to the banned members details. Are you able to remove them at all? - Just curious.

Okay, thanks for headsup Rebbonk I was finally able to remove them from the members list but it was little more complicated than you might think.

FWIW, I moderate a site that attracts a lot of these spammers, we got round it by putting very heavy filters on the posts. It does occasionally cause a false alarm, but it's far better than trawling through posts and seeing what's acceptable and what isn't. Some can be quite clever in how the carry out these "attacks".

Yup. I was watching the sleeper agent known as "pherminatator" very closely but he waited till I was out this afternoon before spamming the entire board.

A major attraction of this board as opposed to the Telegraph's is the sheer ease of signing-up and logging-in. if I was to make it even slightly more complicated then posters might decide they may just as well sign-up with them. Besides that the spambots are smart and will eventually figure a way around any filters that are put in place.

Im a Fake member and I dont give a Fack ..... said the Cockney to the Bishops........