FYI: HOW TO GET RID OF THE SPAM POSTS - PLEASE READ!

All you need to do to get rid of the spam posts is to flag it as spam.  After three people have done so, the post disappears.
 
I will usually also report one of the topics to the moderators so they can ban the spammer later, but we no longer need to wait for them.
 
Thanks for helping keep the forums clean! 

I thought about doin that. But I'm too lazy to create two more profiles.

Note: The posts aren't deleted right away, they're simply removed from being seen.  After three flaggings the post is set to a status of "Approval Pending" which means the mods would see any abuse and handle that situation.

My post count seems to be diminishing.
 

This thread was flagged twice ? !
 
Anyone been zapping the spammers for the past 24 hours ? ...seems spam-free for a while.

Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk]
Please do not flag non-spam posts as spam.
 
Like was done to this thread. It's not funny.
 
This quite literally makes everyone's job harder and makes the community a less pleasant place for everyone. Flagging spam has been proving helpful for everyone. Please don't turn it into a bad situation.
 
We have a log of who flags posts as spam. If people abuse it we will be forced to ban the funny guys instead.

Hi Ryan,
Are there any steps being taken to "un-ban" Craig?

Yeah, it's a difficult situation when both parties (legitimate and spammers) have the same power. Possibly, designating a few of the trustworthy "regulars" to do the job might work......IDK. 
 
Thanks for "un-banning" Craig.

tomixornot

Ryan Munnis [Cakewalk]
 
I'm still researching a better option for everyone to deal with the spam but unfortunately it's not incredibly straight forward.

Suggestion :
1. Is there a daily posting limit .. if yes, say it's 20* posts..
2. Only users with more than 20 posts are allowed to flag spam.
 
Spammers would not be patient enough to post the initial 20* with DAW related stuffs.. if yes, they would probably be identified..and get zapped. And with less than 20* posts, they can't mess around by flagging others.
 

I do like the suggestion. I'll research it. One challenge is a lot of the forum code is compiled by the developer, so some of the implementation we're sort of stuck with. The more we try to customize it / hack new behaviors into it, the more difficult it becomes to update it. I'll look into whether or not you can enforce who can flag posts as spam.
 
Only flaw is that the people who flagged this thread have plenty of posts and know better.

Yes, thanks a lot Ryan!

I have this problem with bans: when you ban a spammer or general jerk, he just creates a new persona and jumps right back in. At least under a consistent screen name you can learn who they are and know whether or not to bother reading their posts, or even block them. Banning just turns into a whack-a-mole game.
 
Rather than banning anyone, how about appending a warning to their screen names instead? That way, whenever you saw a post from {example redacted} there'd be an asterisk and a footnote below: "*certified jackass" to let you know to skip past it.
 
This would have avoided the CraigB embarrassment, because even with a scarlet-letter qualifier under his name we'd know he was OK.
 
BTW, bapu, I knew it wasn't you. Ironically, I would have suspected CraigB before you.

Uh-oh, I can see a new forum band forming - the Certified Jackasses...