Way to Russia Talk Lounge

camarks

It is time to do something about the losers who are sending their hard earned money to Russian criminals and then coming to these forums for a shoulder to cry on. I am assuming that the posts are genuine, and not by trolls, which I sometimes suspect is the case. In any event, I am sick of reading the poor bastards' tales of woe and perhaps even more tired of the responses.

Is there a way we can help the sites that deal with the scammers do better with Google so that they show up first? Is there a way to make WTR sites not show up in searches for this kind of information? Perhaps a single page FAQ with links to the scammer sites could be created under a catchy domain name, which would be easier for the victims to find than WTR?

In general I am frustrated by my favorite forums (WTR and others) getting co-opted by those with no real interest or knowledge of the true subject (in this case travel to Russia). It is really annoying when a legitimate and interesting question gets posted, but all the responses are irrelevant drivel. I have stopped participating in several forums that became gossip columns and soap operas. I was really sad about an excellent food and cooking forum, where the relevant content dropped to below 10%. The professional chefs who participated were run off one by one until there was no useful information for me on the forum at all. This is unlikely to happen to that extent here because of the excellent job the moderators do, but it is still very frustrating to come have a look and find little interesting material among several new threads. Come to think of it, maybe this should have been posted under irrelevant.

Probably nothing more can be done, but I guess I feel a little better now. Mad

mediashark · Moderator Joined: 04 Nov 2004 Posts: 1601

I know it's a bit late for a reply, but you have hit the nail here. WTR shows up on Google very easily, even recent postings on the forum.

Currently there are some threads on this already--they have been around for sometime, and we moved them to Not Relevant, as they are tricky to monintor and people will complain as there are some interesting discussions going on there.

All new threads have been closed for new posts as soon as they are spotted, but this doesn't stop anyone from giving advice via PM. We realise that soon all these threads will multiply, so it's better to keep them short. However it is against the site's 'free speech' principle to delete a genuine info seeking post. We adhere to this as much as we can.

Meanwhile, there are also posts on these matters which will attract a lot of flames, so they are classified as flamebaits and deleted immediately. They rarely offer any information about Russia travel or attract any interesting answers. We will stick to this policy.

So our current practice is:
1. any thread about scams, 'i think i'm being scammed' or any typical 'love story' that looks like a scam will be closed. PM is allowed since it is private anyway.

2. any flamebait will be deleted. this includes '--- women suck, Russian women are better', 'I will beat up Russians because they are skinheads' etc. will be DELETED

3. Dating or matchmaking ads will be deleted. Please do not abuse the Personals section. Please remember that people of all nationalities read these posts.

4. older threads that already have ligit discussions going on will be moved to Talk Lounge or Not Relevant

5. All posts on these matters will be decided on a case-to-case basis.

6. PMs to moderators begging for the unlocking or permitting of such threads will NOT be entertained.

Also it is much easier if people simply ignore these posts, but that is unrealistic.

Rick · Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:54 am Post subject:

There's one good aspect of the 'Not relevant' folder that helps us a bit in taming WTR's google ranking on scams and similar issues: it is accessible for logged-in members only. So any thread moved in there will not produce any useful link on search engines..

camarks · Posted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 4:58 am Post subject:

Pasha · Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 2:19 pm Post subject:

By the way, "Russian Scammers" are not necessary Russians!
They just use "Russian girl" brand name.

BELS · Lounge Lizard Joined: 30 Mar 2005 Posts: 107

Wouldn't an alarm button on the right hand corner of each post, REPORT TO ADMIN be useful ? Why not look at other expat in Russia forums for the example I'm talking about. It works, and members will report spams and irrelevent babble, to make the job easier for admin and moderators.

Miami · WayToRussified Joined: 27 Feb 2006 Posts: 332