Spamming the site.

[Alan]

Thanks, GL. Dealing with these twerps must get tiresome. If somehow I accidentally get deleted, I promise not to get cranky about it.

[GreenLake]

Thanks for understanding. Unfortunately, it's not so much longstanding users, but new registrations. My pattern recognition is pretty good by now, so I can spot "fake" users a mile away, but sometimes a real user may pick a name that fits the pattern used by the spammers du jour.

What tends to help is rotating the security questions at registration. These need to be ones that are easy to answer for new people who are interested (even if only a bit) in the DS, but not obvious to google for the spambots.

I'm running dry when it comes to ideas what to ask - once some spammer cracks one of the questions they appear to distribute the answers on the dark web and I need new questions. I'd love to ask the loyal forum members for suggestions.

Please reply by PM ONLY (so that your reply to me remains out of the prying view of google which would defeat the purpose).

[GreenLake]

I deactivated a small number of accounts that fit the profile of link spammers: no posts, no visits other than the day of registration and a profile that contains a link to a commercial website (with the probable intent of using the member list for advertising).

Most of these accounts aren't recent, as we've been on top of recent registrations; and as their owners never appear to log on, even if legit, they will probably not notice that they are blocked, even if they are owned by people lurking here.

In related news, there's been a steady rise in number of simultaneously active users reported by the site, even though there's been very few posts and rather few actual logins. In the past that meant that someone had managed to hide some payload on the site and was directing traffic there.

Could of course be that there's a resurgence in interest in small-boat sailing. If so, I'm inviting any lurker reading this to register and post something about their interest in sailing - use "Miscellaneous" if you don't yet own a DS.

[GreenLake]

If you are posting from India and all your posts are product recommendations I'm going to assume your business is to provide clickable links. Your posts will be deleted, your account deactivated and your ISP will be banned in the future.

Nothing against people from other parts of the world, but if you post from a country that's not noted for having many DaySailers, but known for spam, we'll observe you carefully. If you're not contributing anything worthwhile with regards to sailing or the DaySailer, we'd rather you went and dropped your spam elsewhere.

This forum isn't big enough or active enough to hide, we will find and flick you.

PS: nothing against links or product recommendations from bona-fide owners or friends of the DaySailer -- if they fit the scope of this forum and appear motivated by a desire to provide useful info to fellow sailors or forum members and not simply to push product.