Missing posts (most probably moderated)

[loloyd]

Hi,

I would like to commend our recently appointed moderators here for doing a fine job in getting the board free from spam. However, recent events made me bring this question - are they doing too fine a job?

I have been receiving email notification from topics I have subscribed to. But when I click on the topic link, my browser tells me that the post has been removed (most probably by a mod). These topics (very old, just old or quite new) look like legitimate topics and I'm not sure if what has been posted in them were really spam or not. I would never know now because those posts have been removed. Some of the topics were controversial *gush* and that's why I'm wondering. :-D From what I've seen here, spammers usually create their own topic thread instead of bringing up a very old one (this would be uncharacteristic of a spammer since his/her spam post would be placed at the bottom of a long vertical page).

Any thoughts?
_________________

http://home.loloyd.com/ is online if the logo graphic at left is showing.

[TRUSTAbyss]

This only happens when spammers reply to old topics. Moderators just split
the old topic and put the SPAM replies in the "Spam Bin". The e-mails go to
your inbox shortly after. Does this answer your question?

Sincerely, Josh (TRUSTAbyss)

[AbyssUnderground]

loloyd,

I must add, that when a spammer replies to an old topic it is brought to the top again, it doesn't stay at the bottom.
_________________
Andy (AbyssUnderground) (previously The Inquisitor)
www.abyssunderground.co.uk

[aprelium]

loloyd,

Moderators do not have the right to delete topics. All they can do is splitting them or moving them to another section of the forum.
_________________
Support Team
Aprelium - http://www.aprelium.com

[loloyd]

TRUSTAbyss, thanks for the clarification, but I must say that back in the days of board spamming, most of the spammers created new topics instead of replying inside a topic - hence, piquing my curiosity.

AbyssUnderground, we're talking about two different things. I'm talking about replies to a topic (they still go at the bottom of a zoomed in thread page) while you're talking about a list of topics in a forum section (newly replied-to topics get promoted to the top of the topics listing page). Spammers might not bother replying to an old topic that has a long thread of replies because of the resulting minimized exposure of their spam, IMHO; leading me to speculate that some of those bottom-rung replies may not have been spam but mere... controversy, for lack of a better term. This is just speculation, anyway.

Aprelium, thanks again for this info. I have read http://www.aprelium.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9753 (About the forum moderation).
_________________

http://home.loloyd.com/ is online if the logo graphic at left is showing.

[Moxxnixx]

loloyd,
These days, forum spammers don't really care if you click on their links or not.
Their main objective is to increase their search engine ranking. Higher rankings
mean higher revenue.

Spammers will reply to an existing thread thinking that it'll get lost in the pages.
The noob spammers are the ones that start new threads, hoping that a search
bot/spider will catch their links before it gets deleted. Others will register without
posting just to get their link in their profile. Search engines pick up on these, too.
In the end, it's all about rankings.

phpBB is the most popular forum script on the web...hence, the most spammed.
Do a Google for "Powered by phpBB" and you'll see they have a never-ending
supply of targets. These losers don't care one way or the other. They have no
sense of ethics.

[pkSML]

Loloyd, I also was wondering about this as well (In fact, I was going to post a new topic today :). I just received two emails about topics I was watching that had new posts. Both were non-existent posts when I went to them.

If they were spam to begin with, the moderators are doing a very commendable job!
_________________
Stephen
Need a LitlURL?

http://CodeBin.yi.org

[roganty]

[TRUSTAbyss]

WAMP5 was removed because it was advertising another HTTP server product,
and I already know that it needed to be moved to the Spam Bin.