[Clytie]

I've had three of those messages today. They're a dratted nuisance, especially when you have your prefs set to popup new private messages and/or notify you via email about new private messages.

Is there anything the forum admins can do about this? Perhaps disallow private messaging for a user until they've posted once? Or is there a better way?

I don't think it's reasonable to expect the users to cope with this individually. Surely it's more effective to confront it here.

Edit: my husband (sysop at our local ISP) says what works for him with phpBB, is either deleting these people as soon as they sign up (if they are few), or (if they are many) simply disallow registration for a while, or require admin approval for registration for a while, which bogs them and gives you a chance to vacuum them out.

[pheski]

I have also received 3 of these in the last 24 hours or so, also my first PMs since I've been a member here (a couple years).

I hope the admins can keep this from continuing.

Peter Elias

[TommyW]

I've received both of those PMs. Two for ipodfilms.

[Chiller]

4 for me. Same contacts as everyone else. Also one hawking their website "zuneempire.net". I did not think that Zune lovers would be posting in the OmniGroup's forum. Seems very unlikely. My 2 cents.

[Josy91]

I received one (IPBoy) some days ago too. Have now restricted PM rights to my "buddies". It was quite a shock. Thought that private forums couldn't be touched by spam (particularly by private messages). :-/

[Clytie]

Got another one today, from "wealthprovider" or something similar, which would trip any basic spam filter.

[TommyW]

Yep... same here.

[Forrest]

More PM spam today.

Can something please be done about this? I don't really care what it is just as long as it cuts down on spam. I get more PM spam here than all other forums I visit combined (which is a lot of forums.)

[Brian]

The only fix I know of is to forbid folks with fewer than <some number> of posts under their belt from sending private messages at all. I hesitate to take steps that might cut off legitimate use of forum features, but I'm persuadable.

I'll try setting it to one post and see if that makes a difference. If not, we'll crank it higher.

[Brian]

Okay, the change has been made. If disaster strikes, please let me know.