Welcome to The Briercliffe Society Forum

Wonder if anyone else uses this site. I have been registered with them for some years now. However, over the past two weeks every thread has been an advertisement for pharmacy products. Tonight I posted a message asking if this was going to be the norm now, Drolux, the senders name simply posted another advert over my message. So I have deleted my account with them. Is this just a way of getting free advertising space?
feel quite annoyed with it all.
rant over
Margaret

I've never used their forum but it sounds like they have been it by 'spambots'. These are robots or automated programs that hunt out open forums and post links to dodgy websites such as drug, * etc. Perhaps the moderator for the site is away or unaware?

We occasionally get hit by these, particularly in the early days of the forum, but Kris and I are usually quick to delete them before they get much publicity. I'm not sure how they work but it seems, the quicker they are deleted, the less problem they cause. I think they attract more bots the longer they are left on a site.

In fact, in the early days, we would often switch on first thing in a morning to find all sorts of undesirable messages and images. I don't think many of our members have actually been aware of this even happening because we have always been so fast to act.
I get the odd text from Gloria to tell me that there is a whacko on the site, I'm never far from a computer so can deal almost straight away. It's even better now Kris is back in Canada as he tends to pop in when I'm asleep.

Actually, while we are on the subject, thanks Kris for your support over the years. I couldn't have done it without you.

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Mel

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Thanks for reply Mel, You certainly do a wonderful job with this site and run a tight ship. I have emailed Elaine who manages Cemsearch, I know she was not well last year so I just wanted to tell her I am thinking of her and wish her well.
I do hope the cheeky devils are got rid of soon.
best wishes
Margaret

I never realised wha hard work a forum could be. We did an upgrade a while back that improved the security and eased the load for Kris and I.

The pharmacy messages are not the real worry. Some of the images I was having to delete were really offensive. I used to have the board locked down so that attachments could not be added be anyone, they are allowed these days though if spam becomes a problem again I will disable the option.

Hope they get it sorted soon. I know how frustrating it can be for users, even more so for admin staff

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Mel

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Hi Mel
I can well imagine what a headache keeping undesirables off a site must be but you and Kris do it and I am sure we all thank you. I have just had a reply from Elaine who manages Cemsearch. Apparently she had been working down South for 4 months and had no idea what was happening on the forum until I emailed her. She is not sure if she can stop them but she is going to have a darn good try, failing that she said she will close the site down then restart it. Just glad that she is not ill again.
keep up the good work and thanks again for all your hard work.
regards
Margaret

Wow, Cemsearch has been hit hard. It looks like every post has been spammed with Pharmacy information.

you're welcome, Mel.

I don't know if you remember Kris but on the early version of the forum, we had to delete the messages one by one. There were a couple of occasions at least when we had every thread spammed.
Now we do have the wonderful facility of deleting all posts at the same time as deleting the user in just 2 clicks.

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Mel

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