Think you were SPAMMED? or "Advertising on Forumosa.com"

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1

Last week, I received about a dozen complaints from Forumosa members about receiving spam via their Forumosa accounts.

This forum is set up so that your e-mail addresses are not easily revealed to others. To collect member e-mail addresses, someone would have to hack into the forum (basically, you have to break in to get them)

So how were these people ‘spammed’? Unless you choose to “HIDE” your e-mail address in your Forumosa Profile, you can be reached by others on this website. When someone clicks the e-mail button on your posts or memberlist line, a web form appears that allows other members to write to your e-mail address. Just to repeat: your e-mail address is not released in this process, but you ARE reachable via a web form

Because of the complaints I received, I’ve done a couple of things:

  1. I’ve moved the Memberlist link so that only registered members have easy access to it.

  2. I contacted the person who sent out the Spam, and informed them of the complaints I received. This person was very sorry and asked me to convey their apologies to those who were offended/turned off by the advertisement.

Now, although I get my fair share of spam in my e-mail inboxes, I wish to emphasize that advertising on this website is welcome. There are two ways that people, groups and companies can advertize on this website:

  1. by agreeing to an exchange of ad banners for rotation at the top of this website
  2. by providing a text to be included in e-mail alerts

(There are other co-promotional methods which have been proposed, but have not yet been developed; so are not ready for discussion)

Now, please take note, ALL ADVERTISING ON FORUMOSA IS FREE OF CHARGE – always has been, and always will be, Lord willing. Now, if we (the administrators and moderators) feel an advertisement is innappropriate, we won’t run it – no matter how much money you wave at us (I can’t wait to have to eat those words, but , this is how I sincerely feel 8-)).

At the moment, I’m the only yahoo who knows how to set up the banner rotations and text alerts – but I plan to correct this over time. Any questions? Please post them here

2

I have seen people occasionally put their email addresses in posts so people can contact them. This is probably how their email addresses were harvested.

Oh… your MSN account email is visible on your profile, including to non-members.

3

Can the “receive forum alerts” or whatever they are called, be put at the bottom of the page so we don’t have to scroll past them to get to the posts every time, please?

4

Seconded. That extra box at the top of the page is most irritating.