Spam accounts

General Discussions Suggestions
#1

So now that we’ve got access to the database, I take it the 24000-odd no post accounts will have some attention directed at them? There might be a handful of dedicated lurkers among them, but I can only imagine the vast majority are signature/profile link spam.
I say delete 'em all, perhaps sparing those who have no links and have been active recently.

Similarly, all banned accounts could just be deleted and the ban list cleared. I can only think of two instances of non-spam bans:

  • persistent “java-sucks/stop-infringing-my-freedom-of-speech” irritant uj
  • that certifiably unhinged champion-of-deaf-children/java3D-VRML-loader-advocate/topless-pingpong-enthusiast flavin guy

and I don’t think they’ll be back anytime soon.

In addition, it’d be handy if mods could just delete spammers as they appear. They typically do their dirty business once and never return anyway, so there’s not much point banning them.

Of course, riven is probably way ahead of me here, and he’s been stockpiling tactical-yield SQL statements for months now…

#2

Well, it’s true that I have SQL queries, but they are certainly not one liners. Deleting records from a database is easy, but you only need one odd foreign key pointing to oblivion and you might potentially take the whole forum down.

I’m very hesitant to ‘drop the dead weight’, and will probably do it somewhere in the next few days. Putting the forum in maintenance mode, making a backup, unleashing the queries, and hit F5 to see whether everything still works :slight_smile:

#3

OT: I keep wanting to post to the suggestion threads, but they are all locked. :frowning:

#4

Fair point. I’m now ‘flagging’ topics with a prefix in the title.