Moderators please read

[Dave Blake]

I know we are getting a lot of spam these days its hard to research every person. I wont go in to details but we have had a couple of honest to goodness members banned as spam. When that happens I get emails from my bosses. I can take the heat so don't worry about that worry more about accidentally banning a person who is just trying to share there story. How would you feel is it happened to you?

The easiest way for us to protect members from this is to check the users IP address before you label them spammers. If the user doesn't appear in the forums spam list then keep researching and make sure it is spam before deleting.

Thanks guys~

Adder: Also remember just because someone reports something that doesn't necessarily mean that we need to act on it.

 

[palandri]

Understood. Excellent reminder, especially for me since I think it was me that made the last two ban errors.

 

[Dave Blake]

This reminder is for everyone including me. Its easy to get busy. When rushed mistakes can be made. I am also guilty of this so no worries. Everyone is doing a great job I really appreciate all the effort everyone is putting in. We have the greatest WP community on the Internet with everyones continued effort I don't see that changing any time soon.

 

[palandri]

Your point about checking and mapping the IP is important. If I would have mapped macgyverated IP I would have seen he was from Dallas. Well we don't have spammers from Dallas.

Obviously what I did/saw (which was in error) was:

1. His 1st post here was in the iPhone section, when this is a WP forum

2. It was titled "Soylent White has arrived!!", which probably got me thinking movies online

3. He had a link to something called Spiceworks, I didn't click on it (or copy/paste it), for fear of it being a malicious site. It didn't sound like a mobile site.

From that I banned him. If I would have mapped his IP, I would have seen he was from Dallas.

 

[Dave Blake]

Just an FYI as long as we are talking about it what he did with that post was against forum rules. With his member status being reinstated I also sent him this PM:

[INFO]Your post "Soylent White has arrived!!" was in violation of the forum rules regarding links. You were mistaking for a spammer then banned and all your posts were deleted. I don't agree that banning you was the right thing to do that is why I am reinstating your user account. in the future if you want to share your thoughts on a topic please do by posting the thread here not linking to another forum. I would never go to your place of business and try to get people out of your building and into mine. Your post is bad forum etiquette and is against our forums rules. Please avoid doing this in the future.

Thanks for understanding,
Dave Blake [/INFO]

When I seen the reported post I looked at the thread my first reactions was this is spam. I was busy at work so I didn't do anything about it. When I got back to it I seen it was already handled so I moved on. Only reason I didn't ban the guy is because someone needed something at work.

 

[palandri]

I should probably mention the other guy I banned in error was marscxx. His post normally linked to PandaApps. I had a concern about pirated software, and downloading applications from PandaApps rather than windows marketplace:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/ban-tracker/195577.htm

http://forums.windowscentral.com/reports-infractions/195576.htm

 

[eric12341]

I usually have banned the spammers that had foreign locations like Bangladesh and such. Those were the few I banned this week. Then like the week Nokia made their announcement I banned somebody who was making tons of inflammatory statements about WP,Nokia as well as this site and other members. I one touched him.

 

[palandri]

I usually have banned the spammers that had foreign locations like Bangladesh and such...

You''re correct, Spammers are normally from China, Philippines, India. Bangladesh would certainly make me suspicious.

In all the years that i have done this, I only know of one spammer from the U.S.. He was out of Michigan and is on the stop forum spam list about 50 times.

 

[Dave Blake]

I should probably mention the other guy I banned in error was marscxx. His post normally linked to PandaApps. I had a concern about pirated software, and downloading applications from PandaApps rather than windows marketplace:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/ban-tracker/195577.htm

http://forums.windowscentral.com/reports-infractions/195576.htm

Ok ok you win you were right I was wrong. Sucks though he posted some cool stuff some times. I gave him the one tough this morning he is gone forever. I don't know about the hacked apps I see your concern there but all the apps he posted here were searchable and downloadable through the marketplace. He was however just in these forums to advertise his website. We have to punk these guys out of respect for our writers and it's against forum rules.

 

[palandri]

Ok ok you win you were right I was wrong. Sucks though he posted some cool stuff some times. I gave him the one tough this morning he is gone forever. I don't know about the hacked apps I see your concern there but all the apps he posted here were searchable and downloadable through the marketplace. He was however just in these forums to advertise his website. We have to punk these guys out of respect for our writers and it's against forum rules.

You banned him?

 

[Dave Blake]

I banned him and cleaned all of his threads out of the forum

 

[eric12341]

Ok ok you win you were right I was wrong. Sucks though he posted some cool stuff some times. I gave him the one tough this morning he is gone forever. I don't know about the hacked apps I see your concern there but all the apps he posted here were searchable and downloadable through the marketplace. He was however just in these forums to advertise his website. We have to punk these guys out of respect for our writers and it's against forum rules.

Oh yea I saw him, I wanted to ban him but then I saw that they were marketplace links so I thought it was legit.