It’s business as usual for us

As mentioned yesterday we have a very persistent troll. The troll is obviously obsessed with our forum and determined to wreck it. Coming back day after day night after night posting complete nonsense. We expect this will go on for sometime. This person under various names has pleaded for a PM system, it is not going to happen. This person is now known to us and was for years a well known member of the DCUK forum. Her MO was to groom and exploit vulnerable people via the PM system. Often a very nice sounding cake was described, if you wanted the recipe you were requested to PM her. Over time she would wheedle her way into peoples lives obtaining details of their employer and family members, extracting information such as email addresses etc.

This person made a big mistake over at DCUK sometime ago and was outed. This very well known and up to that point respected member, disappeared overnight never to be seen again. On more than one occasion this person has been outed by myself and members of the low carb team. This same person tried to infiltrate the ETYM forum, but was very quickly spotted by the people running that forum.

In my opinion this person is clearly unhinged, her posts have demonstrated beyond all doubt she is not of sound mind. Her sole intention is to bring this forum down, she clearly believes Paul, Mo, Graham and myself will buckle under and call it a day because of her antics. She clearly does not know us as well as she thinks. This person can rejoin under a thousand names and post ten thousand rubbish posts and our crew will still be here. We will be doing what we have done for years, spreading the low carb message, helping people to control their diabetes, and doing our utmost to help people avoid  diabetic complications.

Thank you to the loyal members who have joined and stayed with us posting regularly, it means a great deal to us. I am sorry you may have been inconvenienced or annoyed by 'Karla' the nickname we gave to this troll years ago. As I have said earlier, this person will be back countless times under countless forum names, posting complete dross, this is what she does. We will of course ban her and delete her posts as we have done today. At this stage I ask you not to respond to or quote Karla, as we will not delete genuine members posts, and if Karla’s posts are quoted the dross will remain. You may be thinking how do we know when she has posted, I am sure her previous track record on this forum will easily be identified by our genuine members. Forum regulars know when a genuine new member has joined a forum. When Karla turns nasty, as she always does, just ignore her.

Thank you for your support

Eddie

Hi,
People can be pests,
Why not give us her E mail, and we all send her VERY LARGE rubbish, to keep her busy, I could send a 100 a day without a problem ?

Thanks for the heads up Eddie! I was not aware of this person as I never frequented the other forums.

On another forum, which I frequent form time to time (nothing to do with diabetes), a new member has to register and then the account has to be activated by Admin before the newbie can post.  Nothing automatic, it has to be done by a real person, who can see where the application is coming from, and I think you have to give a valid email address.  This appears to be successful at keeping spammers and trolls away, but, of course, in a health based forum, it would prevent the new and desperate from getting an immediate response, especially in the small hours.  Is something like this possible or desirable here?  Just a thought.
Sally

Sally wrote:On another forum, which I frequent form time to time (nothing to do with diabetes), a new member has to register and then the account has to be activated by Admin before the newbie can post.  Nothing automatic, it has to be done by a real person, who can see where the application is coming from, and I think you have to give a valid email address.  This appears to be successful at keeping spammers and trolls away, but, of course, in a health based forum, it would prevent the new and desperate from getting an immediate response, especially in the small hours.  Is something like this possible or desirable here?  Just a thought.
Sally

Hi Sally!

At present all new members who join here have to be activated by an administrator and there has been many offensive user names that we have declined membership to so the difficulty lies in that this troll often uses non offensive user names and until they post-we have no info such as IP addresses etc to cross match with previously banned members plus this troll always posts behind proxy servers,however,at present folks can indeed sign up with a bogus and non verified email address so that is something we will be looking into.

Many thanks for the feedback.

Paul

Thanks for your help and support folks much appreciated.

This is a health forum to help people with a chronic illness. Posting malicious code nonsense to try to sabotage it is just wicked in my opinion. Shame on them.

Paul wrote:

Sally wrote:On another forum, which I frequent form time to time (nothing to do with diabetes), a new member has to register and then the account has to be activated by Admin before the newbie can post.  Nothing automatic, it has to be done by a real person, who can see where the application is coming from, and I think you have to give a valid email address.  This appears to be successful at keeping spammers and trolls away, but, of course, in a health based forum, it would prevent the new and desperate from getting an immediate response, especially in the small hours.  Is something like this possible or desirable here?  Just a thought.
Sally

Hi Sally!

At present all new members who join here have to be activated by an administrator and there has been many offensive user names that we have declined membership to so the difficulty lies in that this troll often uses non offensive user names and until they post-we have no info such as IP addresses etc to cross match with previously banned members plus this troll always posts behind proxy servers,however,at present folks can indeed sign up with a bogus and non verified email address so that is something we will be looking into.

Many thanks for the feedback.

Paul

Hey Paul just a suggestion but you and Mo could do alternate night shifts   that way we could have mods available 24/7

Ok I'll get my coat  

graham64 wrote:

Paul wrote:

Sally wrote:On another forum, which I frequent form time to time (nothing to do with diabetes), a new member has to register and then the account has to be activated by Admin before the newbie can post.  Nothing automatic, it has to be done by a real person, who can see where the application is coming from, and I think you have to give a valid email address.  This appears to be successful at keeping spammers and trolls away, but, of course, in a health based forum, it would prevent the new and desperate from getting an immediate response, especially in the small hours.  Is something like this possible or desirable here?  Just a thought.
Sally

Hi Sally!

At present all new members who join here have to be activated by an administrator and there has been many offensive user names that we have declined membership to so the difficulty lies in that this troll often uses non offensive user names and until they post-we have no info such as IP addresses etc to cross match with previously banned members plus this troll always posts behind proxy servers,however,at present folks can indeed sign up with a bogus and non verified email address so that is something we will be looking into.

Many thanks for the feedback.

Paul

Hey Paul just a suggestion but you and Mo could do alternate night shifts   that way we could have mods available 24/7

Ok I'll get my coat  

The late shift eh? sounds awfully tempting although didn't that member 'Ray' once offer his services to keep an eye on the place during the wee small hours? What a generous guy Ray must have been to offer his services like that!