is the 'business' forum necessary?

I see very few if any 'real' topics posted here. At least few that have to do with business in the Netherlands.

Rather, I see many posts which are spam or links to other sites. Porn and webcams seem to be the most frequent at this time.

Any suggestions or ideas on what should be done would be most welcome.

Thank you

sun-n-fun

I would be more inclined to read it if there weren't so many spam posts on it. Otherwise I think it has some useful information.

Porn & Webcams are business.

They may indeed be business but Expatica says

"By choosing to participate in the Expatica discussion forums and classifieds, you agree to abide by the following guidelines:

1. Postings with the following kinds of content are not acceptable:
* racist, sexist or homophobic comments;
* abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-oriented or any other material that may violate any applicable laws;
* inappropriate/unlawful images or photographs;
* comments which contain defamatory statements or personal attacks on other participants;
* personal details of any other person (including phone numbers, real names and email addresses);
* postings made under another person's name;
* commercial advertising;
* postings containing inflammatory or unlawful material or references.
"

maybe if you can delete the spam more regularly /faster it would be easier to use this part of the forum.... instead I now expect only spam and it might put the spammers off if their spam is removed quickly, theres stuff here now thats been here 3 days already

Good comment, clickit. I try to clean it out every day. Sometimes it slips.

This forum seems to get heavily spammed. I have suggested the following to Expatica
- change the id of the forum so the auto-spam folks will have a problem
- require any posts to be approved after submission but prior to posting.

Now, we all could help by posting more interesting topics here. Might draw some interest.

sun-n-fun

Hey clickit and sun-n-fun,

I am going to pay particular attention to this section from now on, helping sun-n-fun delete spam. He's doing a fantastic job as it is, but this section get's bombarded with spam constantly, I know.

We will be combining the business section with jobs and finance, as well as moving this topic further up the list. This will likely draw a larger crowd. Spammers will continue to post, but if Expatica helps out on this topic, I think we can keep it cleaned up.

We are also considering new software to reduce this spam problem. I will keep you posted on developments.

Happy Monday!
Jami

It would be useful to have a way for users to report spammers' violations of Expatica policy.

In conjunction with that, it'd be great if Expatica could automate the process for banning spammers and removing their posts. For instance, if a user (spammer) were reported for 3 or more violations, then they would be automatically banned and their posts removed.

The idea of requiring review of posts before they're published is nice in theory but would be time consuming and cumbersome for the moderator. I suspect it would also reduce user interest in posting since the process would lack the satisfaction and timeliness of having a post published instantly.

I would definitely use this forum more if there were less spam and an easy way to strike back at the spammers!