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A bit dispiriting to come back after a terrific weekend away to find the place spammed out again. A huge thanks to Amanda for tidying up where she could considering she really doesn't have the time to chase around after these idiots all day.

I'm hoping to send a little bit of feedback to the powers behind AT but does anybody else feel that the time might have come to make this forum a strictly Australian affair, or at least as close to being as Australian as it can possibly be? We have some great posters from across the world and it isn't too difficult to recognise the genuine contributors. Unfortunately, we get very little in terms of high quality overseas visitors.

I hate having to isolate groups of people who could actually benefit from this forum if only they learned how to treat it properly. I'm not suggesting a virtual genocide or anything like that. It's just a question of seeing how you guys would like your forum to run, and for us to keep finding ways to accomodate your wishes.

To say I'm pissed off today is an understatement. I'll be tidying up gradually during the week.

I feel your pain.

From where I'm sitting (not in Australia!), I obviously want to see things kept open and for the moderators to just use their own initiatives. Spam is easy to spot and delete. I know the time factor is an issue but the longer you stick it out for, the less spam you'll get. The biggest issue you have is the underhand tactics that these people are developing.

I'm sure you're aware of it, but some people are now making upwards of 15 or 20 posts before adding their backlinks so they don't look too 'obvious'. Even so, the quality of the posting that precedes the backlinking is pretty poor. I know having to read through every post and making a decision based on those posts isn't ideal, but it's probably the only choice you have unless you begin to ban IP addresses from the countries where most backlinking comes from. I guess you have to ask how many quality posters you get from those countries.

Looking on here, it seems to be very, very few of them. Your Aussie posters are your best posters because it's an Aussie forum. Everything else is either linkbaiting or another overseas poster building up to a backlink. Or me!

It's a tough one.

Yes it is a tough one. There has been a few overseas posters who have contributed good stuff to the forum, and we can't go getting rid of Rigmonkey! http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...es/twink_t.png But agreed there is still the problem of overseas spammers which becomes annoying. I'm sitting on the fence. If we can ban the countries that are the worst offenders I think it might be a better first step?

Thanks for the feedback so far. A reminder here that my own powers are limited and I can't apply any punitive action outside of those powers without consent. At this stage, I just wanted to gather some information about how others feel.

I've been giving it some thought and from my end, I'm actually going to loosen the reigns slightly and try to work with overseas posters instead. It's going to be time consuming but I'm hoping a softly-softly approach will be better in getting the message across (and in the long-term, actually improving the forum).

Some examples of the way I intend to deal with things from my perspective have been made already today. Unfortunately, I don't have the patience Amanda has. On the flip side, Amanda doesn't have the time to constantly moderating so I'm going to have to try and adapt to her style a little more. Let's see how long that lasts!

Obviously, this thread will remain open for further thought. I'd actually like to hear what our overseas friends feel about things. Are the spammers and backlinkers affecting their businesses? How do they feel about their own credibility being compromised by spammers?

Keep adding your thoughts, folks. I'm determined to make this a better place for everybody now I've got the original hissy-fit out of my system.

hey interesting discussion.

i think banning the world is a bad idea. then again, i am not moderating.

i think we all accept spam exists. on one of my car forums that i visit it is ten times worse. we just work our way around it.

and some overseas dudes are really good.

so i think keep it the way it is.