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Suggestions for New Forum Users
#1
Friends,

we get more and more forum spam, like posts with content "this was very helpful" or "it's difficult but I will learn" from users which register, post one of these contentless messages and disappear.

I started to check their IPs and noticed that quite a bunch of these postings today came from Guatemala. From the same IP with different names ...

And mostly the user-names are masculine ;=(

So we can handle these posts mostly as spam and well, what I do?
As a moderator, I ban these users and delete the senseless postings.

So I ask you all, in case you are new here:

We are happy that you found to GetSimple and to our forum and welcome all new members!

1) first read around the forum before you post your question, in many cases your question has been answered already

2) do not post messages with affirmative but meaningless content because most likely posts like this will be treated as spam.

Cheers, Connie
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Das deutschsprachige GetSimple-(Unter-)Forum:   http://get-simple.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=18
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#2
thats a good idea Connie. I will put together a "do this first" topic and stick it to the top of the forum. I completely agree with your two bullet points, so i already have a good start!
- Chris
Thanks for using GetSimple! - Download

Please do not email me directly for help regarding GetSimple. Please post all your questions/problems in the forum!
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#3
Connie and Chris

I agree with Connie on the Spam Posts that seem to be happening a lot of lately, and also her suggestion of blocking those IP Addresses is probable the best option. (This will slow the SPAM down but it will not stop it, because most IP addresses are not static. I guess you could block a range of IP Numbers but then you run the risk of not allowing some the opportunity to join the forum that are not Spammers)

I would like to say in defense of some that ask questions that may have been answered before in the forum or that may seem a little basic to some here on the forum to remember, that not all that are here looking to use GS are computer professionals. These people are just looking for CMS, they can use to get a web site up and look pretty good. I think GetSimple and the people here on the forum do this for the most part, but I would like to throw my 2 cents in on a couple of suggestions. (I know I personally have had questions and have searched the forum here for an answer to what I thought was the right question, but my real problem was not knowing the right question to ask so I was searching in vain.) I am by nature a pretty hard headed type person and sometimes to a fault so I don't ask for help when I really should. I know I sure have made my share of screw ups by not asking and having to start all over from scratch.

I like the idea of more sticky's at the top of posts. These need to be updated as new information is updated.(This should be updated by the owner of the plugin or script)

There are a lot of the posts that are really hard to follow because of the many changes that are made to new plugins & scripts and because the forum has multi-national following the language issue sometimes is a problem. (Maybe time to archive some of the older posts?)

I think I made a suggestion in an earlier post for a Newbies Topic area.
This could be an area were new people could ask questions and not feel intimidated,. Sometimes another person that is also learning can help on a level that a new person can understand.(Because they have been there.) The GetSimple pros could jump in when they see that an answer given was wrong. I know, I read the posts in the developers topic area and a lot of the posts are way over my head.

( Advice here to newbies is do a lot of Goggling before you ask, sometimes that will at least get you to a point were you know the right question to ask)

I hope no one feels that I am complaining with my post, because I truly feel that GetSimple is by far the best CMS for someone with very little expertise to use and can continue to use long after they have grown in knowledge of building a web sites.

I just hope that the developers and forum members that have more expertise here at GetSimple let it live up to its name and keep it simple. I have used several CMS over the last 4 years that were really pretty simple to use, (and still are if you learned to use it before the community changed.) Now these CMS are mostly there for the developers and a few that already have a back ground in web design because the community has gotten to were the newbie just can't ask a question without feeling intimidated. Over time it seems that these other CMS always get away from their original direction mostly due to others that come in and change things from the original direction, so most folks go back to using Word Press.

Bob
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#4
Bob,

I hope you don't mind me chipping in.

rfuller Wrote:I would like to say in defense of some that ask questions that may have been answered before in the forum or that may seem a little basic to some here on the forum to remember, that not all that are here looking to use GS are computer professionals.
I basically agree with you on that. I personally (as I cannot and will not speak for any other user here) try to be as helpful as possible, especially to more inexperienced users. Having said that, people give voluntary help here, so maybe hinting at the forum search and dropping a few related links shouldn't intimidate anyone.

rfuller Wrote:I think I made a suggestion in an earlier post for a Newbies Topic area.
I don't think that we really need a newbie section on the forums. It comes down to how we, all users, welcome newbies and reply to their questions. Setting up some kind of walled garden for them doesn't appear helpful to me.

Since this is individuals who devote some of their time towards answering questions here, it will be hard to set some sort of directives for all. I hope we can agree though that we should be as helpful, respectful and diplomatic as possible as users.
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#5
rfuller Wrote:There are a lot of the posts that are really hard to follow because of the many changes that are made to new plugins & scripts and because the forum has multi-national following the language issue sometimes is a problem. (Maybe time to archive some of the older posts?)

For the plugin support topics I would suggest that the plugin authors regularly update the initial post:
  • update descriptions of functionality because of newer versions
  • update usage description to answer frequent questions
  • describe special questions and link to the post(s) answering them

Part of this is already done by some of the authors.
However, I would like to see this description (or a similar one) in the sticky post of the plugins forum area.
I18N, I18N Search, I18N Gallery, I18N Special Pages - essential plugins for multi-language sites.
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#6
well, rfuller,

I did not mean new users with newbie questions ... those are welcome and I think I have enough experience to tell which are real questions and which are fake posts...
I am in forums for more then 15 years now.

I mean posts like "Thanks, this was helpful" on an old post
posts with no information just some empty content

I think I have a good nose for that:

Quote:Thanks Chris - i appreciate the installation guide link much needed.
Quote:Thanks Chris. A much better response.

Sure sometimes I am insecure whether it is a real post or a fake post, in those cases I do not delete the post or ban the poster, but when I check later these "members" never come back and contribute

posts like this are mere bullshit and just testposts ... maybe those kids want to learn how to use a forum (then they are wrong here, it's not a playground), but mostly this are testmessages to check the forum conditions

and let me tell: I do not want to dilute the good content of the forum with these empty stupid spam posts

so I think we should advertise more some forum politics (when we found an agreement on how to deal with them)

Now I have an idea: in one forum we used to move those posts to a forum section "meaningless - more than offtopic", if somebody felt that the moving was not correct he could react there
what about this? It's like a corner in the class room ;=)
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Das deutschsprachige GetSimple-(Unter-)Forum:   http://get-simple.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=18
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#7
Connie Wrote:posts like this are mere bullshit and just testposts ... maybe those kids want to learn how to use a forum (then they are wrong here, it's not a playground), but mostly this are testmessages to check the forum conditions

i think these fake users intend to edit their signatures and/or posts in the future to insert their spam links... (if they did when posting first time, it would be too obvious...)

this forum is attractive for seo spammers because it doesnt add rel=nofollow to links in posts and signatures...
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#8
Connie Wrote:Now I have an idea: in one forum we used to move those posts to a forum section "meaningless - more than offtopic", if somebody felt that the moving was not correct he could react there
what about this?
Good idea – the sooner the better, for me. If that section could be removed from the RSS feed, so much the better.
SomeUser Wrote:this forum is attractive for seo spammers because it doesnt add rel=nofollow to links in posts and signatures...
Curious for a first post, but it makes a lot of sense.
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Nick.
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#9
hameau Wrote:
SomeUser Wrote:this forum is attractive for seo spammers because it doesnt add rel=nofollow to links in posts and signatures...
Curious for a first post, but it makes a lot of sense.

its not my first post... sorry, i didnt want to give my opinion about this with my regular forum account...
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#10
SomeUser Wrote:its not my first post... sorry, i didnt want to give my opinion about this with my regular forum account...
no problem, i think your point is valid, and have seen this happen from time to time. Why the need to make a separate acct though?
- Chris
Thanks for using GetSimple! - Download

Please do not email me directly for help regarding GetSimple. Please post all your questions/problems in the forum!
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#11
hi.. i am new to this forum. perhaps, you don't like the way i started Smile
those newbies who send some "meaningless" and "contentless" comments may have no idea what they should say. while on the other side, they just want to give a "nice hallo" (they may think so) by commenting to some old post or even the new ones with that comment. may be they just want to show their "existence" by posting such common greeting to this forum. but i think, there's nothing wrong with this way. well, that is my perception as newbie. others may have different ones..
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#12
SomeUser Wrote:its not my first post... sorry, i didnt want to give my opinion about this with my regular forum account...
Confusedhrug: As far as I know, there's no GetSimple hit squad to take care of someone with an opinion, especially a sensible one. Most boards have a house rule forbidding multiple accounts.
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Nick.
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#13
key bank student loans Wrote:those newbies who send some "meaningless" and "contentless" comments may have no idea what they should say.
Then they should say nothing. This is a technical support forum for a content management system, not (I hope) a social networking site.

It must be a symptom of the Facebook and Twitter generation, this need to be chatty.
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Nick.
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#14
Quote:Text content is minimal, usually innocuous and unrelated to the forum's topic, or in a very old thread that is revived by the spammer...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_spam

but instead of spambots...

Quote:Human-posted spam has been on the rise for some time. Low-paid workers are hired by “SEO” firms to post comments on blogs and forums...
http://blog.akismet.com/2010/04/22/state-of-web-spam/
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#15
yes, these numbers are growing unfortunately

in other forums I saw that new members could not post in a certain time period after their registration, let's says 2 hours ... so they have time to read around and think a little more before they start to post

this rule could be announced when registering so they have to accept it in the registration process

the opinion of keyboard loans student (super-nickname!) is silly in my opinion:

Quote:while on the other side, they just want to give a "nice hallo" (they may think so) by commenting to some old post or even the new ones with that comment. may be they just want to show their "existence" by posting such common greeting to this forum

like hameau answered, this is not a playground for bored chatty people and those who want to say hello can do that in the off-topic-sub-forum
there is no need to jump on old posts for that (and as SomeUser pointed out), this is really forum-spamming

I am so tired of all this bullshit, in my more than 25 years in IT most of my lost time goes to Bill Gates, the second big part goes to these f...d spammers and virus-idiots ;=/(
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Das deutschsprachige GetSimple-(Unter-)Forum:   http://get-simple.info/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=18
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#16
hameau Wrote:It must be a symptom of the Facebook  and Twitter generation, this need to be chatty.

Getsimple has a Facebook page. Maybe that's where they come from ...
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#17
datiswous Wrote:Getsimple has a Facebook page. Maybe that's where they come from ...

if so, it would confirm my prejudices ;=)
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