Looks kinda like me at 4AM Saturday.

Then I spotted it - a comment that said "I just saw this on TV..."

I felt a little like Navin Johnson when the new phone books came out - we're somebody.

Welcome fellow early-risers.

Here's a backlink to CBS.

This is really a rant on my frustration at running a discussion board - so if the headline caught your attention, you'll be rewarded in the end (so to speak).

I've come to the conclusion that Boomers just simply have nothing to say - or do they? We've been struggling with a discussion board for something like three years now. Every time we think we have it right we get hit by board spammers and the whole thing goes to hell in a hand-basket.

The problem is Google - no, really. The all-knowing Google algorithm essentially gives "link love" to outbound links in content sites like this one. So, if you are a spammer, the more discussion board posts with links to your v-i-a-g-r-a site, the more popular you become in the Google search listings. Like a lot of things, the spammer's success depends on how diligent the webmaster is at removing this spam - a discussion board that has been ignored can have thousands of these spam links and one that is moderated closely is a LOT of work.

Another trick they employ is to use robots to create hundreds of sign ups (with the spam URL included) in hopes that the discussion board will have a published list of users (we don't) - and therefore an outbound link to their spam site.

Unfortunately, throttling these two forms of spam has created a hardship for "real" users - making them jump through hoops to sign up and forcing us to moderate every new member. In fact, it's gotten so bad that we've essentially given up on trying to moderate registrations. We probably lose hundreds of new users a day in the multitude of robot-created sign-ups - our apologies.

We essentially have two options:
1. Make the sign-up process completely manual - meaning if you want to sign up for the discussion board, you'll need to follow up your automated registration with an email that says - "hey, I'm real, I have something to say and I want to become a member of the discussion board."

2. Close the board.

We think option 2 is a bit drastic. So if you really have something to say - drop us a line and we'll dutifully respond with you brand-spanking (pun intended) new username and password.

Finally, from these two recent discussion board posts it's clear that Boomers are both earnest and warped at the same time.

Post # 266: Irwin's in Toronto?!?! From a grandmother wanting to know if Steve Irwin's widow and daughter are coming to Toronto. She wants to take her grandchildren.

And this one:
Post # 267: BDSM Boomers From a guy who's started a bondage and discipline discussion group on Yahoo.

Editor's note: The second poster signed up a couple of weeks ago and I didn't activate his membership until he wrote asking when he would be approved. I let him wait a few more days until I could get around to it - just so he could feel my pain.