This may already have been asked / answered elsewhere, but... why are spam posts not permanently removed, as soon as it's obvious that they're spam posts ? Don't edit them, don't lock the thread... NUKE THEM !!!!!! And, nuke the poster - meaning, delete them as a forum member.
Fortunately, I haven't had the issue yet on my new forums (shameless plug: they're at:
http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/forums/). OK, before anybody posts a 'joke' reply (I know you too well, JTC) - I'm not spamming, as this is directly related to arcade / emulator gaming, and, I'm not advertising anything with this link that's making money for me.
On my forums, I not only will 'nuke' any such post, and the poster, I'll gladly take it further, and report them to their ISP (since my forums reveal their IP address), and submit the original post to the abuse department of the registrar that was used to register the web site that's linked in the post. Can you tell I'm on a mission ? Yep - I hate spammer scumbags, and want to make things as hard as I can for them. Too bad that 1 out of 10,000 people are stupid enough to respond to the garbage that they peddle. Otherwise, the moron weasels wouldn't exist, as there wouldn't be enough profit in it to make it worth their while.
OK - mini-rant over. Thanks for listening. - Mark Alpiger / MDARULZ / MDA
P.S. Speaking of 'spam', can we finally get rid of the non-working Google ad window at the top of each forum page ? Not only is it annoying to look at, but it causes everyone to hit the 'BACK' button an extra time, in order to return to the previous page... Why is it still there, after months of time ??!!