"betateam" spammed the site

[Capt. Fran]

John and Mike, you've probably already seen it, but Betateam spammed the hell out of the site.
Fran

[NAUTICART]

<TABLE cellSpacing=6 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD noWrap>batateam <SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_16759", true); </SCRIPT>
Banned
</TD><TD width="100%"> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

[Mikey]

Yeah, we got him... Unfortunately it wasn't until he got us first! Thanks for reporting.

[stevefoster]

John and Mike, you've probably already seen it, but Betateam spammed the hell out of the site.
Fran

Capt. Fran,

What do you all mean by spammed the site? I have seen the term before but never knew what it meant. And how can you tell when someone is doing it? Was that the guy that kept writing that garbage about the different birds? Sounded like the discovery channel? My interest is piqued........

[Mikey]

Stevefoster,

From Wikipedia

Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social networking spam, and file sharing network spam.

On the forum here their are a few types of SPAM, some more obvious than others.

SPAMMER #1 is marketers (I guess technically you can call them that) that sign up for the forum here with no other intention than to immediately start posting as many of the same message trying to sell the same pairs of nike shoes or blackberries. These guys are easy to spot and we try to immediately delete the messages and ban the user.

Spammer #2 is a little more sneaky about it, but more or less, has the same intention as spammer #1. These guys are the ones that try to participate in the discussion but have links throughout the post going back to a website in which they are trying to sell things. Red flags for these ones are someone who pulls up a 3 month old discussion only to write jibberish such as "nice photo, I love this picture" or the bird example you mentioned. Spammer #2 will also be hunted down and banned.

Spammer #3 is even more sneaky. These guys are the ones with knowledge of the maritme industry, actually interest in the discussions here but only their messages or profile are again full of links back to their companies website. Many times, they don't even realize they are doing it. We try to treat these types on a case by case basis and generally issue a warning or something.

Unfortunatley, the software we use for the forum automatically approves members and therefor we often don't catch spammers until it is too late. Hope this helps!

Mikey