Please filter guest reporting for spam

[Washerhelp]

Hello

I'm getting repeated spam through the report something system. I must have had 50 over the last few months. I get an email saying "Guest has reported something" and the email (and the report on my forums) is just a list of blatant spam links.

I've been on the IPS forums, and a lot of people have the same issue, but it seems the only response is to tell them to turn off access to guests reporting.

I can't be alone in having forums that are read mostly by "guests". I would say 98% of all my readers are not members. Therefore I need them to be able to report something. My forums do not have any members actively using them. People join up mostly to ask for my help with a problem. Once they have that help they don't come back unless they have another question. 

So the only people "watching over" my forums are guests. I shouldn't have to ban them from reporting something nasty on my forums because some robot is filling the form in with spam links and not being detected by IPS.

Is it possible to get these reports checked by the spam system?

 

[MADMAN32395]

So if it's a help forum and your moderating it yourself, why have guest reporting on anyway? Seems pointless.

[Washerhelp]

I take your point about whether it's 100% necessary for me to have on if but I'm puzzled as to why guest reporting is actually part of the IPS forums. If it's crazy to allow it, and IPS's only response to complaints of it being used for spam is to turn it off why is it there? If it's such a crazy idea they need to remove it as an option. What's it for? Surely IPS thought it would be useful for some administrators to let guests report things? 

I would turn it off but what if someone posted something that seemed legit and was allowed? Then returned weeks or months later and edited their legit posts to spammy links or put porn photos up? I would not get notified. Nor would I ever know unless I stumbled across it. Someone (a "guest") visiting my forums from Google might see it and want to notify the owner? That would be very decent of them. So I wouldn't want to force them to register first.

So if the feature of letting guests report content is a valid and potentially useful feature IPS would hopefully agree that filtering reports for spam would be helpful?