bbPress is a very stripped down forum system, by default it contains very few of the “accepted” forum functions, such as private messaging, user timezones, even image posting. These functions are all available via a simple plugin system modeled on WordPress, and the ring that binds these plugins is Plugin Browser for bbPress, which hooks into the bbPress plugin repository and installs plugins directly to your server.

This will probably become less useful over time as the plugin load expands, but right now it’s an excellent way to test things out and get some more functionality to our forum quickly.

We’ve been planning to move to bbPress for quite a while. phpBB is plagued with spam, both through spam user signups and to a lesser extent spam postings. Last time I checked there was no serious anti-spam plugins or modifications available, and the couple of hacky attempts to fix the problem were painful to implement and not particularly effecive.

So we’re now seriously on the path to a bbPress migration, there are some scripts around which will convert a phpBB database to bbPress, but our phpBB currently has 7486 registered users, and I’d say about 300 of those are real people. So before the migration, it’s time to remove the spam profiles.

Here’s a great start, it deletes all “members” who signed up over 48 hours ago and are inactive (haven’t clicked the confirmation link in their signup email).

The SQL looks like this:

I don’t think the CreateDigitalNoise forums are particularly popular, in the scheme of things. We’ve got a couple of hundred real users posting (and several thousand spam registrations - one of the reasons we’re moving to bbPress soon) 7000ish articles.

The only reason we haven’t run away from phpBB sooner is that the Moderators (and myself) are spam destroying ninjas. Most forum spammers thinly veiled attempts to insinuate their commercial pandering in our very serious artistic conversations are very obvious.

However, we’ve recently had a spammer who spent a little time, adding a couple of almost-relevant posts before revealing their flackishness. They started in the "Introduce yourself" thread:

hey party people

wanted to intro myself.

i live in washington dc, i work for a marketing firm and i have been a music groupie my whole life. my mother lived next to mick jagger once — it runs in my blood stream.

see you all on the forums.

Should have noticed the "i work for a marketing firm" bit and just banned them. Oh well. They added two more, slightly confused sounding posts before dropping this bomb in a thread entitled "the strengths and unique qualities of digital sound":

hey all - one of my clients is Energizer and they just released these new beta boards at www.pandoradiscussionarea.com that are a great place for discussions like this and a place to get more advice on gear, sound and the hottest steez. they are also promoting this new iPod battery — SO if you do go Digital with your iPod — you can plug the battery into it for a much longer set….let me know what you think.

Wow. That’s is a particularly pathetic attempt. Especially when you take a look at the site! I’ve had it open in a tab since this morning, marvelling at how terrible it is.

"Exclusive discussion area brought to you by Energizer(R) Energi to go(TM)"
"Portable Power: Mobile DJ’s & electronic artists, discuss your techniques, BPM and strategies here"

If that’s not bad enough, it looks to me like many of the posts within the "discussion area" itself are PR flacks as well:

Lee Fams, on November 12th, 2007 at 1:07 pm Said:

um. can Energizer make a battery for cell phones? My phone/PDA runs out of charge after 5 hours ?!
Energizer should work on cell phone batteries. kthx.

Julian, on November 14th, 2007 at 6:05 am Said:

@Lee Fams, they do.
http://energitogo.com

Depressing stuff. Better forgotten really, except this is a great lesson for us on how not to do branded or partnered content. Peter and I have had plenty of discussions this year about having companies sponsor or otherwise give us money for the content we’re creating.

Keep this in mind as a failed attempt at "Sponsored Content".