Suggestion: Only Gold or Pro users allowed links in forum signature

Vickie

@bracconiere and I have been desperately reporting each spam user and thread on the forum as we find them, but that would only be fixing the symptoms. These spam users would copy an old thread(?) with what seems like legitimate questions or concerns, but the user would soon have 2-3 spammy links in their signature. The users appear to never return after posting the initial topic.

Suggestion: What if only Gold or Pro users are allowed to have links in their signature, or having a signature altogether?

bracconiere

didn't put the copy paste scheme together myself. good thought.
wondered why they sounded like more work than a spammer would put into a post.

and i agree with you.

Vickie

So... there hasn't been any obvious official action or reaction to the spam links in people's signatures. Are they actually Cronometer approved ads? Could we change it so that Gold and Pro users can't see them, then?

bracconiere

i'm not sure if they can micro manage to that granular detail. this forum is "Powered by Vanilla Forums" so they have to work with what they have...

Vickie

Source: https://vanillaforums.com/en/features/gamification/

Abilities Tied to Reputation
Not all members are created equal. Ranks, tied to abilities, are earned based on reputation score. Abilities include including links in posts, signatures, promoting others’ posts, etc.

Also under plan comparison, every plan has:

Custom Roles
Create Roles with custom permissions.

I imagine what we're after is very possible.

TheRegents

I want a custom robe! A dalmatian robe!

Oh wait... role... my bad

bracconiere

i guess we could then...DEMAND TO BAN THE SPAM! lol

Karen_Cronometer

Thanks for your diligence everyone!
We are looking into the best way to address the spam.

Cheers,

bracconiere

i don't know how 'bad' it actually is seems like the same guy/people posting the same wacky websites... .vip, and stuff, maybe a domain ban would be most effective...

brian_cronometer

We have identified a pattern to some of the spam that's coming in and have updated our auto-ban rules.
Thanks for being proactive marking them as spam, your help maintaining and growing the forums leads to a better cronometer experience for us all.

We'll be keeping a close eye to see if these updates help.

Brian