Internet Websites "going to the dogs?"

[FriedaKateM]

HI, to all. I am expressing my own opinion in this posting!!! I was on Ian Rankin's website yesterday, and on "ours" right now. I am offended by the massive amounts of postings that are, when we get right down to it, BASICALLY TRYING TO SELL SOMETHING on our sites.

Quite frankly, again in my own opinion, this takes ALL THE JOY out of my posting on any website that condones/allows this. I've been kind of heartbroken for quite a while about this. NOW I also belong to AARP website community, & even though they have their problems, they don't have this where people are coming on & writing gibberish in attempt to sell some of their ugg boots, or whatever. Is there any way this can be resolved??? Thanks, Joan

[Alastair]

There is really not a 100% method to prevent that Joan. Even if we vetted every new member some would get through the loop. I do check for new messages every day at least once and if I see that type of post then it is deleted and the member banned. However there is an odd case where I think it is possible that there post might develop into something useful so I allow it to go through but do send them an email. In the event they don't respond to my email and then post a similar message then their posts are deleted and they are banned from the service.

So while this also isn't 100% it does keep such messages to a low number but it can never be avoided 100%.

I will say that if we were a much larger system then we'd have loads more problems and would likely have to have more people helping to maintain the system. We did for a time open up the newsletter forum to non members to post messages but that has now been closed again to just members being able to post messages.

I will say that I can still miss an odd message if I am just doing a quick run through but certainly if I notice an inappropriate message I will delete it.

Alastair