What exactly are we paying you for anyways traderzones?? these kind of unforced errors will not be tolerated. Username = Nstudz And of all things he is here to spam for the "neckline slimmer" AHAHAHAHAHA http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2560575#post2560575 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2559235#post2559235
Just think, if everyone reported spammers, then this place would be less attractive to spammers. It is the fairness to sponsors that keeps this place in business. Although, for the umpteenth time, why doesn't ET fix the Complain button? Perhaps Half of the reports are ignored by its thread moderator. either that, or add a "Spam" button on posts that goes to a central site for deletion. Reporting them in threads like this in an energy drain. Spam is a central problem, not a thread problem. The faster spammers are deleted or banned, the less attractive spamming becomes.
You as a former spammer at EliteTrader.com should obviously be aware that if you STOPPED doing the work for ET management the spammers will run wild at ET and that in itself may force or encourage ET management to put in better spam controls similar to what other forums are using today. My point is that ET management doesn't see a need to upgrade their registration process, moderator process et cetera as long as you continue doing what you do... Your Motto If I can't spam...you can't spam. I'm serious, you're so efficient at what you do in notifying ET management about spam along with getting in the face of the spammers via your direct messages to them as a replies to their messages that there is no need for ET to update anything. Try it...don't notify them about any spammer for a few months and Baron may just be willing to listen as sponsors get mad that they have to pay while many others don't have to pay. To be helpful...I'll repeat two basic things Baron needs to do that most other forums have been doing for years. (1) Most of ET spammers do not realize they are spamming. They think they are being helpful, informative, responding to messages about them or about something they specialize in et cetera. To ensure they understand, within the registration process, there should be an agreement statement specifically only aimed at vendors that sell or blogs that are finanically compensated for clicks on the advertisments at their blogs... That agreement must then receive a click or check in the "I Agree" statement that they will not post links to their fee-base site, blogs or anything else they are affiliated with that they receive a financial compensation. (2) Auto Ban List via a word trigger. For example, lets say a ET member sees a spammer post his/her Url via a link (http://tztrading.com) or spelling (tztrading.com) or whatever has the tztrading word. When that word is within a message post that's being sumitted as a reply or to start a new thread... It is auto changed via the word ban trigger into anything Baron wants like instead of seeing tztrading.com it produces iamspammer.com This option keeps the message post and it's bandwidth that Baron is more concerned with. Another option is that the message post can't be submitted (I do this at my own forum and at another forum I moderate)...it's excellent response to spammers or particular trigger words being use. (I have a current list of 5,673 trader websites, blogs et cetera known to spam intentional or accidentally in which there urls or names get auto changed to iamspammer.com while many others goes into moderator queue) Another option is that the message post automatically goes into a "moderator queue" (needs to be reviewed by a moderator) prior to it being allowed to be posted because it contains a "banned trigger word or url"...it also is excellent response to spammers or particular trigger words being used. All of the above options have been suggested MULTIPLE times over the years. However, we all knew it wouldn't fly with ET management because it would lower their membership and bandwidth. Well...guess what...the internet or it's resources has been changing dramatically the past 2 years for traders in specific. * There are now more competitive forums without the crap seen at ET. * More traders collaborating with other traders via social network sites like facebook, twitter et cetera. * ET sponsors themselves are becoming more active on social networks and I see them interacting more directly with traders on social networks than here at ET itself. Guess what the above will tell other potential sponsors? * More vendors have their own forums and more blogs are becoming more interactive (chart sharing, video sharing, moderated replies et cetera) and many themselves have their own forum. * Trading environment since the global financial crisis or collapse (late summer of last year) has forced many traders to the sidelines or into other careers. ET is becoming a relic via choice as other forums, blogs, social networks offer more and whenever you ask what happen to all the past good members... They didn't blow up...there posting elsewhere and now are the average joe bob trader doing the same. Yet, the fact remains, ET has a very high search engine ranking (+25k via alexa) but the rankings of other trader resources are catching up fast...very fast. Three years ago I saw some of the competion with rankings above 2 million. There now between 40k to 1 million and improving as their resources available to traders improves along with site management. Summary, if you guys want ET to change... Stop doing their dirty work for them. Mark
As a followup to my prior message to make a point about the registration process...take a look at the ET image attachment further below of ET's most recent member at the time of this message post. His/her or robot is a known recent spammer at other forums via the user name Cussatari. I know all that information I annotated on the image along with other information and I'm not even part of ET management...I know that because of my connection to several anti-spam organizations to help rid of forum spam. ET has a flawed registration process being exploited by gmail (most common source for spammers). In addition, it's CAPTCHA is primitive or not being used (it eliminates about 22% or robot registrations) in the registration process. In addition, forcing members to answer a simple trading related question in the registration process like... * What do you trade? Put that simple question below the "Enter Email Again" statement in the registration process. The question must be answered to complete the registration. That will elimate the remaining 78% of robotic registrations that makes up about 65% of most forum registrations that do not use CAPTCHA or that do not have a one question answer statement in their registration process. Simply, several anti-spam organizations say that most forum registrations are autobots by spammers especially forums that have a primitive registration process like EliteTrader.com Also, ET registration process has something called Optional Information that contains stuff like Biography, Location, Interests and Occupation...make it a mandatory fill in commenatry to complete the registration process. * Show IP addresses to all members and not just to moderators only. That will scare about 30% of real person spammers or problematic members (not all but a lot of them). * Have a "Spam Alert" button at the bottom and top of EVERY message that if clicked by 3 different members from different IP addresses... That message by the spammer is auto removed and sent to a "moderator for review" trash bin only seen by ET management. Moderators can then review the message for deletion, ban or repost via a single click. This more efficiently allow members to report spam and allows members to immediately feel like their being helpful in removing spam in comparison to scrolling all the way down to the feedback section to post another eye sore thread about a new spammer. * Setup a sneaky forum seperate from ET that allows spam to be posted. Use this sneaky forum to accumulate your BAN LIST of urls and words for your actual forum... Very effective. * BAN certain foreign IP hosts from registering (example .ru) * All gmail registrations are given a secondary pop up screen in the registration process that once submitted... It's checked against the .csv list of known gmail spammers at sites like http://www.stopforumspam.com/ that maintain their own list of forum registration spammers. Their very effective and to use their information only takes seconds when combined into your registration process. * Lets say its a real person with good intentions but doesn't know that posting links to his/her website is against the rules. That's where the "Spam Alert" button comes into play in combo with "Moderator Queue" after 3 alerts by members. This will also give ET management the opportunity to contact the spammer to see if he/she wants to be a paying sponsor. If the spammer saids no to ET management...all the messages are deleted along with a personal email from Baron himself telling the spammer not to do it again. Yet, just in case the spammer is a jerk or pretends to be naive about what they did...the url and name is enter into the "Word Ban List" so that if the url or word is typed again into any message post prior to being submitted...it can not be submitted or it gets changed to dumbspammer.com or gets sent to the infamous "moderator for review" trash bin only seen by ET management. Last of all, any trading forum webmaster that saids the above doesn't work... They are lying and just being lazy. P.S. Most of gmail registrations at forums are spammers while only a few are legitimate. Mark