Dealing with recent spam

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

Check out this profile: vismaior1411.

This guy has been pretty cunning. He posts comments like "Valamir I totally agree with you" with a big sig to his obnoxious website. For a while it was once a month, then it was once a week, then once a day, and as of today, several times. Each message is the same format, with slightly different agreement phrases. I am beginning to think we are dealing with a bot, because the threads seem to be chosen at random.

This is also the guy who sends a "Check out my website" type spam to random Forge members. I have no doubt that dozens if not hundreds of inactive Forge members have received them as well as those who've informed me and Clinton.

So! Announcement. This is the first time that we have blocked a given person from posting by rendering his or her account inactive, so they cannot log on. The existing posts have not been deleted. The upside is that if the person is doing this automatically, it'll be blocked. The downside is that if the person ... wait, I shouldn't describe that. It's pretty obvious, though.

Conclusion is, we'll see what happens.

In the meantime, do not reply to this person's existing posts or PMs.

Best,
Ron