Spam bin

While we are fortunate webdigity doesn't get many spammers, but have you though about creating a spam bin (a category where you move spam threads to) It would help remove any posts from the main listing, and you could set up robots.txt not to crawl the bin.  Just a thought, If you do decide to do it, I don't mind spending some time marking posts for moderators to move if you can come up with a system.

I think we don't need that, as we delete spam messages.

The only spam messages we don't delete are those that we keep to have some fun :)

urgh not a good idea to delete, its against EU data protection and retention laws for start, also it leave you open to to all sorts of mud slinging.

what? there's a law against deleting spam messages from your forum? You must be joking!

Data retention, you are required to keep hold of all details for a year or until it is no longer relevant which ever is longer, it does vary from country to country even in the EU, but basically you are required to keep personal and commercial data for a year of submission (it doesn't have to be viewable) but you need to keep a copy. Now this is rarely enforced except against large business but as a principle its there and what your meant to retain is a very grey area indeed

However the real reason not to delete comments is to avoid people suggesting you removed there post with out good reason or cause, or if it was inflammatory the other party may wish a copy. A new fun scam at the moment here in teh uk, is to write to posts making a suitably nasty comment about a person. The blogger removes it, and then the person who was being flamed, requests the information under the data retention laws. The blogger is unable to give it verbatim (he deleted the comment) and so says no, he is threatened with court action unless he pays damages. Its of course a scam and both persons are working together, they work on the principle that the  blogger will pay rather then go to court where he could theoretically go to prison for 2 years, though in reality its a fine (if in a criminal court), and damages in a civil court.

that tells me that the law in UK is protecting scammers, with the result that the UK internet market is less attractive. I was wondering why UK based  ad publishers want to a have written contract from me if I agree to place their ads on my website(s).

If I need to store data for a year on my webserver (which I have to pay) the government has to pay me for that. Here in Holland only the ISP need to backup the logs for a year and this is already too much for a lot of providers.

The only thing I can say is:

WE NEED FREEDOM ON THE INTERNET !!!

urgh its EU wide, just some countries have yet to change there laws... and most don't enforce them. Its ignorance of the law that protects scammers not the law itself, sadly because laws governing the Internet are very grey anyway scammers use site owners ignorance to their advantage and take the money and run. The protection retention laws are not particularly hard to comply with and have many advantages when dealing with businesses that maybe on the dodgy side on the whole I'm in favour of good data protection laws, I just think that there should be far more easy to understand information and that the rules are enforced.

There is another idiotic law that is for the whole E.U. that all mail servers should keep all the emails from the past two years for later investigation (in case of a crime)

Think of how much storage you would need with all that spam to hold that mails :)

Personally I just make fun of these laws, but there are some laws that should change in EU regarding e-commerce. I think europe is a little back in that subject....

That's a good point, one of the grey areas in the UK (and holland ;) ) is who is responsible for the data, now some countries say its up to the ISP to log traffic, but most are shifting that its the hosts themselves that should be providing the data. Now if you Host with a third party that is in Europe you will probably find they already do backup the data, but even in these cases its a question of when and how often, its worth contacting your hosting provider and asking if they do backups.

Ultimately it will take a couple of legal battles to work out who, in the mean time, if your a company or store credit card or personal details then you must keep them secure and safe for a year if you, or your site is based in any EU country. For other information the rules are less clear, and are made complicated by national and EU rules and regs, be thankful our American friends have it far worse, they have various State + national laws + custom control restrictions.

I think a good rule of thumb is if its personal keep it, if its inflammatory keep it, if its illegal keep it/report it
otherwise use common sense, spam posts probably can be thrown away, but I can see the comment scam mutating hence my mentioning it.

yes thats the point keep sensitive date...

I know a lot of (durch) hosting companies doesn't back up their servers

If thats too much for anyone to hold, they could always switch to gmail the mailboxes can now hold nearly 3GB  ;D

Legally you only have to store the headers I believe, though its a pointless exercise, I had a client once who was forced to hand over a stack of emails, in a legal case, a total waste of time, they were all encrypted. The police had obtained the wrong warrant and the judge wouldn't issue another for the key, quite funny really.