Over the summer, the Africa Expat Wives Club forum (click here to read or use the link on top left of this page) got invaded by spam... I didn't realise how out of control the spam had got until a friend pointed out the problem.
There were posts on how to buy Facebook friends, how to chose a wig (a favourite of mine; 'even your pet can wear a lace wig') and what to do with Viagra and then there was gobbledegook in Russian and goodness knows what else.
Anyway, I've cleared the rubbish off - a horribly time consuming task - only because I'm an idiot and realised that there was a shortcut to deleting posts on my fiftieth or sixtieth attempt. Now I can see that it's not a bad resource - there's info on what to pay domestic staff - things to do for expats in search of friends, where to live, what schools to send your kids to, where to get curtains made - where to buy a mattress (a strangely popular forum?!).
Many thanks to all those who have contributed to these discussions, notably Juniper, Morikins, Suzanne, clairel, ajpeters and many more.
The diary of a British expat living in Kenya. News, views, debate and a healthy dose of trivia.
Yes, spam's a pain. I just let anyone to post on my Blogger and sometimes I get crap on my posts. I am still using the old version of the manager page, I should switch to the new one probably!
ReplyDeleteSo glad to hear its cleaned out. Have been using it since I moved here and found it a great resource but got a bit discouraged by the spam and that people would not take the time to sift thru it. Just a small suggestion. When people want to join - maybe you have to approve their membership first? Just a thought since I know its time consuming and a bit of extra hassle but may make sense overall to not have to clean up later??
ReplyDelete"I didn't realise how out of control the spam had got until a friend pointed out the problem."
ReplyDeleteI (an anon Blog and Forum fan) did actually send you a message (or two) about this.
As regards making people register to post on the Forum, well, I would simply stop posting on it (and I've have contributed a few times). I think a lot of folk get turned off by anything that requires registration.
My humble suggestion: keep the spam in control, and regularly refer to the Forum in your Blog postings - I had suggested that to you too. The Forum is a wonderful resource but the signposting to it from your Blog is weak.
:)
thanks for your comments. I'll keep a closer eye on the forum and delete spam asap. Will also try to improve the signposting from the blog. Not sure that there's much I can do about user registration though, but I'll look into it.
ReplyDelete