Forum policy change towards spammers

[Hobbit]

The WEB spammer traffic is getting worse every day. It is not only our forum but most of the forums on the WEB that are getting hit and administrators are taking different measures to control it. I looked at different options and unfortunately do not see the ideal solution.

Most spammers just create the forum login account and place the advertisement in the user profile. I honestly fail to see a good reason for someone to register if they do not post. Also, I consider the forum mail as a privilege for the users who contribute to the forum. So my solution is quite simple ? all the logins with zero posts will be removed on the regular basis.

I?ll start doing this probably in a week from today. Please post your opinions on the proposed change.

Thanks

[VicP]

Don't spammers also post?

I don't post very often (only once before) but read and visit the forum regularly. I guess this post will keep me from being deleted.

Anyway, there must be a better way to get rid of spammers, but I do not know what it is.

VicP

[Hobbit]

VicP, you had one post before this one and it is a "real" post on the subject related to sking. If you browse through the users list you'll see what I was talking about -- a bunch of user handles with ZERO posts and some meds adverizing scam in their user profile pages. These logings claim to be from all over the world but the domain traces mostly resolve to Russia.

I do not think that the "real" spammers do post. In the worst case they would insert some unrelated message which has nothing to do with skiing (like ?look at this link ??, or ?how do I insert avatar ??, etc.)

This is a simple matter of spending money. Actually someone hires a person to get through the login process (since there are provisions against robots or ?bots? in our login software). The ads are mostly related to some form of scam including online medications, etc. So if the ?advertisers? of those scams want to pay more since their workers would need to study skiing it?s fine with me .

It is not our intention to ?police? the site but this is a private site created for discussions on skiing and PMTS. I don?t think that having an account on this board brings any benefits or bragging rights or whatever. If you are not a spammer and your handle is dropped, we do apologize. But you can always create a new handle when you really need to post a question / opinion or some useful information. Reading the forum posts does not require login. So please create the new user handle only when you are ready to post.

[Arkady]

Yes, I am one of those who have registered a while ago, never posted and thus my privileges expired.

I just did not have much to share, but found the forum immensely interesting and informative. I hope this posting will help to keep me in until I have more to post so that I will be able to do it without re-registering. It is not a big deal, but I'd prefer to stay in. I am not a spammer though my origin happens to be Russian .

As soon as I am here, I'd like to introduce myself: college math prof, 47, pretty low-life skier (the last year was the first one ever I had 20+ skiing days). I like to understand what I am doing and PMTS seems to make perfect sense to me. Read 2 HH's books, it helped a lot.

A question: where can I find PMTS coaches or at least PMTS skiers to ski with in the Midwest? It is about time to think of the coming season. Located in Twin Cities, but a few hours' drive is O'K.

[Hobbit]

Hi Arkady,

Nice to hear from you. My origin also happens to be Russian .

So after all you do have a good question to ask. So please post it in the appropriate area (I suggest ?PMTS Camps, Find a PMTS Instructor and Related Links?) and I am sure you?ll get the answer.

It is so nice to hear from a real person instead of seeing zombie pages pushing scams.
The cleanup that we are doing is just forced by the spammers pushing their scams.
We understand that some real people may be affected. But it's the spammers who have to carry the blame for the inconvenience.
We just have to maintain some level of sanity around here because the forum has been hijacked in the past and we need to keep the scam out.

[Arkady]

I totally understand the policy. I would not like to see this forum down again like it happened in the past. I will post my question in appropriate thread and would be glad to hear some ideas.

[Harald]

I notice how there are new members every few minutes that disappear, are all these spamers?

[Hobbit]

Sometimes its quite obvious ? just open their user profile page and you?ll see Viagra ad placed right there.
Sometimes it?s not as straightforward, but the spammers use the automated scripts (called spambots ? for spam robots) which scan through the forum and try to harvest the email addresses.
If you open those holes they keep coming back and re-scan the forum again and again hoping to get more victims info.

I usually let the new accounts with zero posts to ?soak? there for a little while and then just drop them.
It?s a low effort maintenance operation (I just need one mouse click to drop them all).
We have not heard any complains from the real people yet.

[Harald]

Hobbit, thank you for your attention to this problem. Real members shouldn't have a problem with this way of dealing with the spam threat.

[fisherskionsnow]

PMTS Forum a big plus in my life. It has given me more information about skiing than any other teaching system. I now look at the kinetic chain from the feet on up. Steering a thing in the past, but still emphasized in other systems. But as I attend other clinics in my Division, I see and hear Ski Instructors using PMTS language and techniques. But they don't give credit where credit is due. Instead it's the new thing on the block, but to those of us who have been using PMTS we realize where credit is due.
Thanks Harald and Diana.

[Harald]

Thank you Ken, very nice words, everyone will be well served, if PSIA adoptes PMTS, PSIA instructors, and their skiers, that's what I meant PMTS to do.

But PSIA resisted so long, so much and in many places they still do. It will eventually come into fashion, regardless who they give credit to, it doesn't matter to us we know where it came from. What we are most afraid of, because they are so inept, they will screw this up as well.

It's easy to do, you just have to mix up a little phantom move with foot steering and you lose all the benefits of PMTS. I know they won't study the system completely and in depth.