AllisonVSC said:
Curious how you could tell that links were attempted.
It's an educated guess. I've seen similar posts on other forums that allow new members to post links - and the links have been spam. Another popular one is to post something along the lines of: "I completely agree with the previous poster!" (where part of that reply includes a link - i.e. several words are underlined and in blue indicating that you can click on them to get elsewhere).
The old spamming method was to post a message with links where both the message and links had nothing to do with the forum (e.g. advertising discount prescription drugs, male infertility medication, etc.).
The new spamming method is to post a message that has something to do with the topics discussed on the forum - but include links that take you to ads for discount prescription drugs, male infertility medication, etc.
So same old spammers - different methods.
I use the "report to moderator" function regularly and try to do my bit to keep these forums spam free. Although they're pretty clean even without the flagging.