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 Bill D posted on Wednesday, 31 May, 2006 - 12:24 am
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I too am delighted to see Richard back.
However, rather than a moderator, I would be happy with requiring people to register to use the forum. I've been away (in Valencia!) and missed all of the contributions (deleted, I assume) from "gay man".
That at least piqued my curiosity (although I have no doubt the posts were unsavoury) but the mobile phone adverts were just tedious.
In July, I will be off to Florida. Last year, I managed to get a CD rarity, JW's 'Duos' with Itzhak Perlman. In Barnes & Noble! I think I also saw 'Concerto for Guitar and Jazz Orchestra' there. God knows why I didn't buy it. Will look again. |
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I've gone a roundabout way of allowing registered users only to POST - anyone should still be able to READ posts.
Let's see if it works. I'll leave it this way for a few days - with any luck, the spammners might give up.
I repeat something I said a while back: I am REALLY loathe to require registration, as this board is currently the only way visitors to my web site can contact me (I've disabled all feeedback forms and email links 'cos of spam), and I don't think I should require folk to register for a one-off message.
Incidentally, Tricky, I assume you deleted all of "gay man"'s posts (whom I have, again in a roundabout way, renamed "spammer" in all the index pages) - I need key words from his messages to add to the board's "swear-box" to disallow usage. |
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| I've just realised that I didn't change the right settings to set a requirement for registration. As I am around (although busy), I'll do it manually, so until further notice you must email me (if anyone doesn't know, [my initials] [at] plum [dot] cream[dot] org) to get a password. You should get a reply within 12 hours. |
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| Tim posted on Wednesday, 31 May, 2006 - 09:15 pm
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Hi Richard - well I hope that's me registered! Hope what you've done sorts out the spammers, it was starting to look more like a George Michael / Glitter message board than a Sky / JW one!
Thanks for a great site and I look forward to some more fun and informative discussions. |
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| Tricky posted on Wednesday, 31 May, 2006 - 10:28 pm
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(I'll just repeat here what I put in another thread in case anyone missed it because of the spam throwing the posting order out of sequence...)
A google of one of the less common names used has shown over 22,000 spam posts - even on corporate sites - which shows the scale of the problem. Even schools haven't escaped.
Unfortunately, as soon as I saw the g** references, I simply deleted the posts unread, as they all had the same pattern. I still remembered some keywords, and being somewhat thick-skinned, I googled and got a profanity list sorted - mostly from other forums. A distasteful task - I've got toothache through grinding my teeth... (had to explain to my son why I was looking at those sites - I hope you all appreciate what I had to go through!)
The one amusing note was on a pop music forum, where someone, somehow, had got hold of one of the spammers email addresses and posted it for the others to spam... |
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| Chris posted on Thursday, 01 June, 2006 - 06:35 pm
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Poetic justice...
Let's hope that this registration process gets rid of our 'Happy' Spammers and things will return to normal before too long. |
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| Tricky posted on Sunday, 25 June, 2006 - 09:58 pm
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I had thought that the spammers would have given up by now, but yet another google shows they're still at it, with posts (not here!) as recently as a couple of days ago . Not so surprising is that they are only posting to open forums, where registration isn't required. Legitimate traffic on these sites has all but stopped, and some sites have changed their forum software (and/or settings) to the kind that provide automated registration after you enter a user name and password. Even that minor effort seems to be too much trouble for them.
Interestingly, I think I've located a couple of sites they use for testing purposes i.e. there isn't a link to the forums from the main web sites - but they show up in google searches. So if an updated profanity/banned/IP list is needed....:-)
Oh, well. At least they're leaving us alone.... so it's back to normality.... |
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| Richard posted on Monday, 10 July, 2006 - 12:50 am
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No time to read much around here (but had to glance through the Latest News section and was glad to read Tim's addition there).
As I'm going to be away until some time on Thursday, I've suspended the requirement to register (just in case one of the non-regulars has anything to say), so keep an eye out for the spammers. If they don't come back, I'll leave the board as it is until we have trouble again. |
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| Tim posted on Friday, 14 July, 2006 - 06:57 pm
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| Back withe spam -see Vlad's post on the JW board. Argghhhhhhh! |
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| Tricky posted on Friday, 14 July, 2006 - 10:36 pm
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| Sorted. It may be a one-off. We'll see. |
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| Tim posted on Saturday, 15 July, 2006 - 06:58 am
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| Maybe not - same post, different poster on the JW board as 'hello'. |
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| Chris posted on Wednesday, 19 July, 2006 - 05:41 pm
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| If I was a Dalek, I'd exterminate the lot of them. But as I'm not, I can't. Sorry. |
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| Myke. posted on Monday, 24 July, 2006 - 09:09 am
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Oh dear Richard & Richard, I think you've got your work cut out now, the morons from outer space are back. Regisration and passwords will have to remain if these mindless muppets carry on like this. Saving grace I suppose is this lot are simply a nuisance rather than offensive nuisance.
Good luck cleaning it up, if I can be of any assistance please let me know.
Regards, Myke. |
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| Tricky
posted on Monday, 24 July, 2006 - 10:20 am
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Keyword: "texasholdem". Bastards. This one is probably an automated spambot.
Richard, I believe that this (current) forum software is the version that doesn't allow automated email registration. My guess is that most of these spams will cease with the "Pro" version that sends you an email that you have to confirm before you are allowed to post.
I can buy this if you want and send it to you to upgrade (?) this version. I'm definitely not short of a bob or 2, so don't worry about that! (I'm not a millionaire, but believe me when I say I'd never even notice the cost :-) )
I don't know just how difficult it would be to upgrade/install. If you want to do this, just let me know and it'll be done. |
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| Admin posted on Monday, 24 July, 2006 - 12:32 pm
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I could afford it myself if I wanted, but I'm a bit reluctant to do so,
In any case, I've changed the settings back to registered posters only.
(I got rid of a whole mass of betting-related spam yesterday afternoon and included added "texasholdem" to the filters. It seems not have worked... Hmm... |
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| Richard posted on Tuesday, 25 July, 2006 - 10:39 pm
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| test |
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| Tricky posted on Wednesday, 26 July, 2006 - 10:50 am
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Test ? It's working  |
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| Tricky posted on Wednesday, 26 July, 2006 - 11:04 am
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There were a whole load of what appeared to be randomly generated words in the "t**********" spams. Most of them legitimate words. The one constant was "t....", which was part of links to the online gaming sites.
I notice that these particular spams always use "t...." in the poster's name. Is it possible to filter based on the name ? |
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