SPAM!#$%@&*

[bob_r]

The spam has been getting out of hand lately even though a number of us are working at keeping this site clean. I check the site at least 4 or 5 times a day, but the spammers still sneak in. I know we have a few members that are minors and do not need to be seeing this sort of rubbish. I don't know what the solution is, but possibly if we had more members that could ban spammers and delete posts it would be helpful. Besides the site admins, I believe there are only 3 of us (Pat, Luca and myself) that are allowed to ban members and delete posts. Perhaps the site admins could add a few more members to this list. If anyone wants to volunteer, please post to this thread and maybe the admins will add them as moderators.

Thanks,
Bob

[CG415]

I'm willing to take on the reposiblity.

Peace,

Chris

[bob_r]

Chris,

I'm about to give up trying to moderate this site. You can tell by the condition of the site today that I'm losing the battle. I sent a PM to the admins asking them for help, so I'm just going to wait for their response. I certainly don't mind helping out, but I don't have time to make this a full time job.

[Farmerj]

couldn't they add that "security" picture that you have to type the word out of?

[tjo]

Bob,

Yes, I see what you mean. I just deleted a bunch. I'm forwarding your suggestions to the powers that be, one of whom is out sick today. But we'll try to make some improvements to the situation very soon!

Thanks for all your help!

Tom

[bob_r]

Bob,

Yes, I see what you mean. I just deleted a bunch. I'm forwarding your suggestions to the powers that be, one of whom is out sick today. But we'll try to make some improvements to the situation very soon!

Thanks for all your help!

Tom

Thanks, Tom!

[gldiana]

couldn't they add that "security" picture that you have to type the word out of?

yes that would be the best way to go because it would block bots, which make 99.9% of spammers

[tjo]

I'm waiting for out admin person to come to office tomorrow, but I believe our system now requires some type of manual authentication that is already weeding out bots, but believe me, we'll be working to improve this asap.

Thanks again, Tom

[gldiana]

Thanks Tom

[tjo]

Hey gang. Our wonderful admin person is back today and she made a couple adjustments that will hopefully help with our continuing efforst to prevent spam. She's also looking for new add-ons that will help.

At present registrants have to enter their "Captcha" code when registering. That's standard. In fact, when we first launched the new board, there was very little spam.

What happens is that as soon as new technology comes out to prevent spam, spammers make a concentrated effort to figure out how to get around those
preventative measures.

All we can do is try to stay a step ahead of them. Unfortunately, that's a full time job.

But I'll check in more often on weekdays now to lighten the load for the volunteer moderators, who have been doing a terrific job.

Thank you all for your patience.

And continue to enjoy the forum!

Tom

[bob_r]

Thanks again, Tom.

[gldiana]

Since a couple of days every time I access the forum I'm required to login, seems like cookies have been disabled/removed. Is this a new feature? I find it quite annoying.

[Mitchell]

Since a couple of days every time I access the forum I'm required to login, seems like cookies have been disabled/removed. Is this a new feature? I find it quite annoying.

i Agree big time,
i definitly dont post as mutch becuase i look at somthing and im like sigh.. i have to login..

[Bonish Photo]

I noticed that myself, but if it keeps the spammers down, then I dont mind loging in.

It much better than spending our first 25 minutes deleting spam and banning the spammers

I feel for ya' Bob and Luca, I know when ever I check the forum and see 20-30 spammers have left their mark, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[gldiana]

The thing Pat is that it won't keep spammers down because the first thing bots do is try to login to the website, they don't assume that they are already logged in. I'm not even a bot programmer and that's the first thing I'd program them to do.


As added annoyance, I just wrote a message and when I clicked on submit the site brought me back to the login page because meanwhile it had logged me out. So careful when you write long messages because you will lose everything you have written if you're not careful. I think at the very least the cookie should be valid for 8 hours. I don't think I'll be posting much until this problem is rectified, to me it creates more problems than it solves. I do recognize though the effort webmaster and moderators are making in order to keep things clean and I'm grateful for that, I just hope we find a solution that doesn't create more hassle.