Hey, I said what Jimbo 88 said first! Just not in as clear words as he did. But he gets alllll the glory! Grrrr!!! Haha :p

Steinberg forums do not require a dongle. In fact, Steinberg finally has some products that don't require a dongle, and I'm hoping that it's only the beginning of a trend for them.

I've been on Steinberg forums for ages (though I really on't spend much time there), even before I owned any products.


From what I remember you first need to create a MySteinberg account, but that doesn't mean that you're buying abything. For example, you need to create one in order to download a demo - that doesn't mean you own the product though. 

I've just checked and the third step - registering a product - is optional.


See, maybe that's all you need to do - get people to believe that the forums are for registered users only. Spammers will stay away. :P

What insults me is that it seems so easy for spammers to post. For the biggest part of the evening tonight, I couldn't even post, and I'm still having all kind of issues.

Can you imagine how they'd flood those forums if the forum software actually worked? 

Yeah, the option that mattplaysguitar (<- see what I did there) and Jimbo88 mentioned would work ok.

A separate "Private Forum" that everyone can read, but only registered users can post to (your login/acct setup requires a product ser#).
That would, at least, be a forum area that's filtered by software owner/not-owner.
We can still offer input to non-owners, but it keeps the "reg users" forum section ~relatively~ clean.

Devil's advocate here - How often would we registered users venture in the unregistered forums?

Wait... 

Make it: How often would we venture on the unregistered forums if we knew that we'd only find 4 or 5 legitimate questions in a sea of spam?

I know that within vBulletin, you can set limits on what new members can do until they've achieved a certain post count - no posting URL's for example - I wonder whether there are options within the software here that could be used?

I think it's good like it is now.... Registered users as well as those seeking info about the products can exchange ideas with ease...

The big problem that we are seeing here in the last week or so has been that the MODERATORS are not "watching" the forums as close as they should, nor are they checking their in boxes in a timely manner. 

Reported spammers should be removed quickly and the IP address they used blocked.  When this happens by the mods in a quick manner the spammers are made to jump through all sorts of hoops to come back and spam only to be whacked again quickly... they will go looking for easier pickings. 

My suggestion to solve the issue would be to have the moderators select a few trusted long time forum users who are regular contributors on the forums. Give those few people the ability to remove SPAMMER  posts immediately .... kind of a civilian quick response force. 


This has been suggested before.  


I understand that the mods can't be setting here all day policing the forums for spammers but I have seen some of these spammer's posts remain on the forums for several days, and to me that is not acceptable.  When I see a post that is 7 minutes old, if it was removed at that point, the spammers would become very discouraged especially if they had to go and use another IP address to get back in and go through the process to  register again. Heck... put a 15 minute delay on the registration..... for a normal user, that's nothing. To a spammer, that's a huge roadblock....time is money to them.


Just my thoughts

I would venture the forum is supplied by Cakewalk to entice new users of their products, as well as keep down tech questions by having us users answers  such newbie questions like "Do I need to turn on my computer before using SONAR?"

It is not in their interest to narrow the base.

And Cake has always been kind of lax in enforcing the forum, until a spammer feeding frenzy starts, which seems to be happening.  Then someone has to take time out of their day from doing other things to check the forums for spam.  Maybe we'll get to meet some of the new employee!

Ya, the forum software sux.  But we get what we pay for for a free service.  The old P5 members set up their own site.

Anyway, I'm not big on Cakewalk spending too much time on the forum, but certainly the amount of spam is getting outrageous.

@

mattplaysguitar


Hey, I said what Jimbo 88 said first! Just not in as clear words as he did. But he gets alllll the glory! Grrrr!!! Haha :p

Yes you did...sorry I just can not read more than :30 without losing attention.
 
mattplayesguitar deserves credit and Chudkebaby is right behind.
 
I officially rescind any credit for the above idea and place all due honor to the correct parties.
 
It's only right.

Guitarhacker


I think it's good like it is now.... Registered users as well as those seeking info about the products can exchange ideas with ease...

The big problem that we are seeing here in the last week or so has been that the MODERATORS are not "watching" the forums as close as they should, nor are they checking their in boxes in a timely manner. 

Reported spammers should be removed quickly and the IP address they used blocked.  When this happens by the mods in a quick manner the spammers are made to jump through all sorts of hoops to come back and spam only to be whacked again quickly... they will go looking for easier pickings. 

My suggestion to solve the issue would be to have the moderators select a few trusted long time forum users who are regular contributors on the forums. Give those few people the ability to remove SPAMMER  posts immediately .... kind of a civilian quick response force. 


This has been suggested before.  


I understand that the mods can't be setting here all day policing the forums for spammers but I have seen some of these spammer's posts remain on the forums for several days, and to me that is not acceptable.  When I see a post that is 7 minutes old, if it was removed at that point, the spammers would become very discouraged especially if they had to go and use another IP address to get back in and go through the process to  register again. Heck... put a 15 minute delay on the registration..... for a normal user, that's nothing. To a spammer, that's a huge roadblock....time is money to them.


Just my thoughts

 
I agree 100% with everything you say here Herb.