Hi Lorne, thank you for your concern and for bringing this up.
This is actually not just our issue, but an issue many forums face nowadays. Luckily, this is something that we have been taking very very very seriously for years. You might not notice this, but we are actually doing a lot of work regarding this. We always
proactively monitor and moderate the forum. Most of the warnings and infractions we issue (apart from advertising in the forums where advertising is prohibited) are for content (mostly by new members). Given that our Marketplace requires time and minimum number of posts by a member, some try to cut the corners in making fluff posts with sole purpose to increase post count. Since we've always focused on quality rather that quantity and have a clear warning that fluff posts will not be tolerated, if we notice a member who pursues this behavior, we delete posts and issue a warning or an infraction. If a member was able to spam through the posts quickly enough to start a thread in the Marketplace, his thread is removed as a penalizing action. A member is always made aware that we take content posted at HostingDiscussion.com very seriously.
I, for one, go through every single post made in the community. That allows me to immediately spot a user using the cheap tactic to push his/her signature or to get to the minimum required post count, so action is taken as soon as one of the moderators or I take notice. It is common that some new members would lose enough posts to go from 20+ posts to single digit numbers, because the rest of the posts were junk. It is also possible that you'll notice the mass fluff posting first, if neither of mods are around. However, I can guarantee you that if you come back and try to find these posts later, you won't, because they'd already be deleted. Such actions send a clear message that this is the kind of community where insightful contributions are valued and the right to advertise is earned.
Thank you once again for your concern. In the meantime, I always advice members to use the "Report Post" function if they happen to come across something that looks like spam, or if they notice an attempt to increase post count. Usually, such kind of posting is done in batches.
