I Hate Spam!

I just spent the last 30 minutes deleting users from our discussion forum that were blatant spammers. I'm 1/17th of the way through my list of "members" to comb through. What a pain!

If I accidentally delete you, I am very sorry. I am bleary-eyed at this point. I tried to err on the side of caution and keep the "members" that looked like regular people. But for the most part, if there was a link to a website on your profile and the website had anything to do with mortgages, casino games and rated R material, I deleted you.

Because of people like this, our forum had to basically shut down for several months because it was just way too much for me to moderate on my own. But after several conversations with my husband, he convinced me how valuable this forum is to people who are genuinely interested in the Paper Illusion product and what it could do for them, I had to find a way to make it work.

So, earlier this week, I upgraded the software to the newest version and implemented some security features. Now, anyone registering on the forum needs to fill out a field indicating they are a real person (and not some computer robot-thing-y) who can read a graphic. Also, I am personally reviewing every person who registers to see if they appear legit. Red flags for me are what I would consider inappropriate websites and email addresses that promote inappropriate material.

Eventually I'll make up a list of "unacceptable" words and load that into the software, so anyone trying to use those words in their profile or posts will not be permitted to do so.

Of course, this shouldn't effect anyone who is genuinely interested in what is being discussed at the forum, since we're not about mortgages, gambling and mature-marriage-practices. But if you happen to be in the mortgage business and are interested in Paper Illusions, please forgive me if I deleted you. Mortgage brokers are not bad people...it's just unfortunate that people who spam a lot happen to be spamming on behalf of mortgage companies.

Anyway, the forum is "open" for discussion again to new & registered users. Please bear with me as I finish "cleaning house". I'm on there everyday and there's plenty of people genuinely interested in discussing Paper Illusions and the projects that can and have been done, so feel free to join in! (Unless of course you're only interest is to sell mortgages, promote gambling and/or sexually explicit material...you guys can just take your keyboards and go take an ecourse on discussion forum etiquette.)