What's new

NOTICE: State of the Badger Address

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
The more observant of members may have noticed that the total number of members visible at the bottom of the Forums page with all of our statistics has taken a drastic change.
From a number approaching 55,000 we are down now to just above 30,000.

What in the world could have made such a change in our statistics?

It started a short time ago when we discovered some very strange Search Engine results from Google.
It seemed that Badger and Blade was taking a hit from Google due to spam like links.

A Search Engine Optimization Company was hired to investigate and provided us a report which was shocking to say the least.
B&B had numerous registrations from folks who would post 1 or 2 threads to establish themselves, and then they would attach a disguised link in their signature to spam sites.
I'm no internet guru, but as I understand it, this gained these people an expanded base for operation due to "click throughs".
In short, these folks were piggy backing on B&B's popularity and using it for spam purposes, which hurt us in the Search Engine world due to corrections made by those search engine operators.

In the past week, we have done an extensive clean up of past members, deleting profiles and links that affected our standings.
While we would have rather spent this massive amount of time with friends and family leading up to Christmas, it was important that this get done, and get done quickly.

So where do we stand? We believe that we have eliminated the vast majority of these spammers and just plain pains by removing these links to questionable sites.
That leaves us in good standing as a snapshot at the moment, but doesn't address the problem moving forward.
How do we do that?

The simplest means of preventing spammers from using B&B as a base for spam attacks is to eliminate the means by which they do it; namely links to questionable sites.
To this end, B&B has made the decision to remove two aspects which enabled spammers to attack us.

First - elimination of the "Home Page" field. This field which is editable from members preferences, allows members to place a web address in their profile. It's only visible when someone views a members profile.
Removing this field does not affect the vast majority of members who have no entry in this field anyway.

Second - elimination of links in signatures except for;
Authorized Vendors
Authorized Hobbyists
Contributors
The theory being that a spammer will not come to B&B and undergo the Vendor or Hobbyist examination process, nor will they make a donation to B&B in order to have a spammy link.
This allows us to say ipso facto - if there is a link, and the member is not a Vendor, Hobbyist, or Contributor, then they must be a spammer.
Likewise, any Vendor, Hobbyist or Contributor must by process of reason, not be a spammer.

We are sure that while the links in signatures may at first be inconvenient, that the membership here appreciates the efforts that we go through in order to provide a spam free environment for our members.
The barbarians at the gate are ever more resourceful in trying to utilize our resources for their own means, and we must remain flexible in combating them.

No one really embraces change, but we hope that these changes are accepted in the spirit in which they are intended, to further the enjoyment of our members here without fear of spam, flaming, trolling, or commercialism.
 

Toothpick

Needs milk and a bidet!
Staff member
Thank you Phil and the Moderator team for continuing to make this a great place! I appreciate your ongoing effort to keep B&B a respectable gentlemanly resource. This speaks volumes to the teams devotion. Now enjoy your holidays!

Merry Christmas!
 
Thank you Phil and the Moderator team for continuing to make this a great place! I appreciate your ongoing effort to keep B&B a respectable gentlemanly resource. This speaks volumes to the teams devotion. Now enjoy your holidays!

Merry Christmas!

+1. Thanks for the effort!
 

BigFoot

I wanna be sedated!
Staff member
I just want to add my own thanks. All of this hard work was done by a very small group of Mods namely two or three who are the site admins.

You guys rock. :thumbup:
 
I was under the impression that links in sig lines were always restricted to the paid membership.

Were what you were finding, unlinked URLs in sig lines? Hidden URLs in posts are a big problem in all forums (links from unrelated words within the text of a post). The link is invisible to those reading the post but spiders/bots will follow them as they read the underlying code not the visual text that everyone else sees

Vetting memberships has always been the bane of all forums.

An extra round of xmas cheer to all who put in so much time and effort to make this site what it is!!!
 
Thanks for the update. That makes perfect sense. B&B has been great to me. I've learned many things and I've met many fine gentleman. Thanks for your hard work and dedication.
 
Top Bottom