Is there a way to prevent a specific domain from being linked at all?
The use-case is the following: a user keeps responding to any topic with links to their website, which is not necessarily bad nor dangerous, but the result is that all conversations feel hijacked and spammy. After insisting several times with this user, the posting pattern persists. Note that the rel="nofollow" does not seem to prevent such behavior.
I’m thinking that removing the links entirely, or even preventing posting when the domain appears may give an incentive to contribute to the conversation itself for its own sake rather than to spit out external links all the time.
Maybe there are other, non-technical ways to address this issue, but I can see it as a potentially recurring issue across forums.
@Firepup650’s watched words suggestion is useful when a variety of people are posting links to a small number of spammy sites. Definitely a useful tool to have. In this case it seems like you have a user who is pushing the limits of what’s socially acceptable. You might want to consider a self-promotion policy as well. That might solve the problem without bringing in the block, which might feel heavy-handed.
An inevitable problem with blocklists is that persistent offenders find ways around it. A well-formed policy can create a community norm that channels users into more productive activity. And if not, blocking still remains a potential solution.
