Mollom
27 May 2013 - 4:52pm
We have just implemented a spam filtering system for the forums provided by mollom.com. If it is too aggressive in preventing the posting of legitmate messages then I can be emailed or a message can be left on the answerphone to let me know. This message should also serve as a check for me on how mollom is behaving. JB
After two weeks Mollom appears to be very successfully blocking spam from the forums - only one of 992 attempts to get junk advertising onto the forum having succeeded. The spammers do not seem to be discouraged however and keep generating spurious new user accounts so that they can keep trying to fill these forums with gibberish. I am deleting these accounts as fast as I notice them but if you find that a genuine account of yours seems to have been deleted my apologies - just re-register with a name and email address which is not obviously fictional.
If the pests become too troublesome we might have to implement a system whereby new accounts require a valid email address and a reply to an email confirmation message before becoming active but as this would be an additional inconvenience for users we will continue as we are doing for the present. Another way of discouraging abuse might be to prevent anyone who has not completed a full symptom questionnaire from posting on the forums as I suspect that the spam artists will not want to spend 20 minutes doing this in order to register. If anyone has any thoughts on this they would be welcome. JB