Quote from TraderZones:
Just think, if everyone reported spammers, then this place would be less attractive to spammers. It is the fairness to sponsors that keeps this place in business.
Although, for the umpteenth time, why doesn't ET fix the Complain button? Perhaps Half of the reports are ignored by its thread moderator.
either that, or add a "Spam" button on posts that goes to a central site for deletion. Reporting them in threads like this in an energy drain. Spam is a central problem, not a thread problem. The faster spammers are deleted or banned, the less attractive spamming becomes.
You as a former spammer at EliteTrader.com should obviously be aware that if you STOPPED doing the work for ET management the spammers will run wild at ET and that in itself may force or encourage ET management to put in better spam controls similar to what other forums are using today.
My point is that ET management doesn't see a need to upgrade their registration process, moderator process et cetera as long as you continue doing what you do...
Your Motto
If I can't spam...you can't spam.
I'm serious, you're so efficient at what you do in notifying ET management about spam along with getting in the face of the spammers via your direct messages to them as a replies to their messages that there is no need for ET to update anything.
Try it...don't notify them about any spammer for a few months and Baron may just be willing to listen as sponsors get mad that they have to pay while many others don't have to pay.
To be helpful...I'll repeat two basic things Baron needs to do that most other forums have been doing for years.
(1) Most of ET spammers do not realize they are spamming. They think they are being helpful, informative, responding to messages about them or about something they specialize in et cetera.
To ensure they understand, within the registration process, there should be an agreement statement specifically only aimed at vendors that sell or blogs that are finanically compensated for clicks on the advertisments at their blogs...
That agreement must then receive a click or check in the
"I Agree" statement that they
will not post links to their fee-base site, blogs or anything else they are affiliated with that they receive a financial compensation.
(2) Auto Ban List via a word trigger.
For example, lets say a ET member sees a spammer post his/her Url via a link (
http://tztrading.com) or spelling (tztrading.com) or whatever has the tztrading word.
When that word is within a message post that's being sumitted as a reply or to start a new thread...
It is auto changed via the
word ban trigger into anything Baron wants like instead of seeing tztrading.com it produces iamspammer.com
This option keeps the message post and it's bandwidth that Baron is more concerned with.
Another option is that the message post can't be submitted (I do this at my own forum and at another forum I moderate)...it's excellent response to spammers or particular trigger words being use.
(I have a current list of 5,673 trader websites, blogs et cetera known to spam intentional or accidentally in which there urls or names get auto changed to iamspammer.com while many others goes into moderator queue)
Another option is that the message post automatically goes into a "moderator queue" (needs to be reviewed by a moderator) prior to it being allowed to be posted because it contains a "banned trigger word or url"...it also is excellent response to spammers or particular trigger words being used.
All of the above options have been suggested MULTIPLE times over the years.
However, we all knew it wouldn't fly with ET management because it would lower their membership and bandwidth.
Well...guess what...the internet or it's resources has been changing dramatically the past 2 years for traders in specific.
* There are now more competitive forums without the crap seen at ET.
* More traders collaborating with other traders via social network sites like facebook, twitter et cetera.
* ET sponsors themselves are becoming more active on social networks and I see them interacting more directly with traders on social networks than here at ET itself.
Guess what the above will tell other potential sponsors?
* More vendors have their own forums and more blogs are becoming more interactive (chart sharing, video sharing, moderated replies et cetera) and many themselves have their own forum.
* Trading environment since the global financial crisis or collapse (late summer of last year) has forced many traders to the sidelines or into other careers.
ET is becoming a relic via
choice as other forums, blogs, social networks offer more and whenever you ask what happen to all the past good members...
They didn't blow up...there posting elsewhere and now are the average joe bob trader doing the same.
Yet, the fact remains, ET has a very high search engine ranking (+25k via alexa) but the rankings of other trader resources are catching up fast...very fast.
Three years ago I saw some of the competion with rankings above 2 million.
There now between 40k to 1 million and improving as their resources available to traders improves along with site management.
Summary, if you guys want ET to change...
Stop doing their dirty work for them.
Mark
