I'm really stuck when it comes to this certian member. He isn't a spammer that I know of but his IP is registered at Stopforumspam under 4 different usernames and emails. They all come from Singapore. He hasen't spammed my forum or anything. But I just need to know if I should ban the member as could-be spammer or not or wait till he actually does. I won't say who this is because he is also here on FP and many other forums that I know of.
If you never found StopForumSpam, you wouldn't have considered banning him at all, so why ban him because it says it on a website?
Also, StopForumSpam is dependent on webmasters to "dob" people in, but there can be reasonable doubt as to whether the person they are blacklisting is a legitimate spammer or someone which the admin has had a grudge with. Not saying SFS is unreliable, you just need to be sure that they are legitimate spammers from reliable evidence which you've gathered.
Like in western criminal law, you should be banning people beyond all reasonable doubt, and not just relying on another website.
David is right. There's one site that im listed on as a spammer.. The spamming sites are useless, all they do is go to a highly spammed forum (so a forum with constant spam) and mark every member as a spammer, whether they are a spammer or not. This doesn't mean all spam lists are but most generally do this technique amongst others, so unless a member spams your board, leave them be.
I would wait until he actually does something before doing anything. Like Nathan and David have said, why ban him when he hasn't done anything wrong yet? Sure, his reputation might not be the greatest on other forums, but that doesn't make him a ban on site on your forum either. I've learned the hard way that you should always wait before deciding to do anything with a member at all. If you ban just based on reputation, that could end up hurting your reputation as well, and people will start to think you randomly ban people, as I have had this happen to me before. So just because a person's reputation is crap on other places, that doesn't mean he's an automatic ban on site profile on your forum. Give him a chance and I'm sure things will go just fine.
Plus to add, there are people who uses user names that are labeled as a spammer at stop spam, but didn't know about it. Infact, a forum I administrate at that has 50,000 posts, when installed the registration plugin to check the database of spammers when someone registers, labeled me as a potential spammer, when i have not been spamming. I did not know that a username I have been using at that forum for over 4-5 years now, was marked as a spammer because of some spam bot or spammer.
I am pretty sure I know who you are referring to and his ISP is filled with abusers hence why his IP is in the SFS database as it has been used previously for spam and he picked it up. Also if I am right as to who you are referring to then he has been banned from this forum although judge him by what happens on your forum.
Well I am that type of person who likes to stop trouble before it starts. But I will wait then and see what he will do then. Thanks everyone for answering my question. 🙂
Well I am that type of person who likes to stop trouble before it starts. But I will wait then and see what he will do then. Thanks everyone for answering my question. 🙂
Right now, you have no confirming evidence that this person is trouble. Like I said previously, if you never found him on SFS, would you have considered banning him? Probably not.
Well I am that type of person who likes to stop trouble before it starts. But I will wait then and see what he will do then. Thanks everyone for answering my question. 🙂
I'm that way as well. I like to stop problems before they arise. However, you can't always assume that just because a person has a bad rep on one forum, doesn't mean he'll have it on yours. Just let him alone and let him post and then if he acts up, then you can take action accordingly. It's never polite to assume something will happen when he hasn't done anything wrong yet that would earn him even so much as a slap on the wrist.
