NOTHING here to look at (Gordon)
 

Edited.

Re: A secret....
 

Yah...Right! Click on this and you are "Dead Dog Meat!"

When are you guys (Dien, Gordon J and Michael) going to STOP allowing "Anyone" to post here?

When just ONE of "your viewers: on this Forum gets infected with something by clicking on a Link posted by a "NON-Member"...the "Word" will be out and your Forum wil be dead!

Sooner or later...you folks are going to have to do some "registering and checking" of the posters here. Otherwise...hang it up and go do something else!

Don Alm....someone who got STUNG HARD by a "MAL Virus"...simply by clicking onto a Link.

Don, You're free to go somewhere else.
 

This isn't the only forum online. Don't like it? Don't come back.

How's that for taking some action?

Dien and I both spent several hours today dealing with the SPAM. Dien is putting in some SPAM safeguards, and all of it was done by REGISTERED posters.

We'd like to keep it a public forum. It is a labor of love for Dien, as for me, I'm a little tired of the REGISTERED posters spewing their political rants, raves and diatribes. PLEASE, take it down the road, I don't really care if you or anyone else posts here or not.

If you can do a better job, start your own damn forum and leave us alone, fair enough?

Gordon Jay Alexander

PS. I have a link guard on my computer, get me once, shame on you, get me twice, shame on me. You can always right click the link to see the properties, but still, there are safeguards for clicking on links.

Pull your head in, Don
 

Listen Up, Don!

You CLAIM to be a Republican surrounded by Democrats - and the usual jibble. But I wonder if that's entirely accurate. I wonder if you're just a RINO.

You see. Dems are Notorious whiners and complainers when things don't go according to how They want them to be. Clamoring for some kind of Control so they won't be Upset by someone. EXACTLY like you are whining about in this post. And your incessant whining about all things against Don reminds me of this...



If I had my way, I'd remove the Protections Dien has placed on the forum. And I've posted Against their implementation when they have happened. Because I don't want to be Nannied.

But I also Respect that this is Not My Property. It is Dien's. And as such, Dien, and only Dien, has the right to implement features or take them away as He sees fit.

But here you are... asking for more of it. More Nannying. The Supposed freedom lover wants to restrict people's posting freedoms. To suit himself.

To block any post he Deems to be Insulting. But, hey... insult people freely yourself, right Don...

"Your words PROVE how easily others can influence your pea-brain."

"Now...Mr Brains Full of Mush....what do YOU think was the response?"

Frankly, Don, I am Fed Up with your "poor me", "I iz hard done by", "someone is out to get me" crap. And a lot of the posts which are deleted - in your favor I'll add - *I* would leave up for you to answer.

The FACT of the matter is, you have been Protected from harsh criticisms on this Forum by having those posts Nuked.

But now you want still ever more Protections.

No-one makes you come here. And you are free to leave and never come back - or start your own forum with all the protections and "registering and checking" as You deem fit.

Want us to STOP anyone posting... do Checks and such...

Fine. Let's start with the biggest wanter of said things... Don Alm himself.

So let's do some Checking of Don. Make sure he is an Upstanding Citizen before allowing him to post.

Well, just two Quotes above shows he insults people and calls them names. So things don't look too good for you Don.

Shall we do a Google. Google Don Alm to Check him out. (What do you think Don? Should we? Should we check out the top result page "The TRUTH About Don Alm?")

As part of our checks, Don. We need to know why your website comes up as Suspended Page in the host's URL. We need to know these things, Don. As part of our Checking of the posters here - as you requested us to do.

Oh... maybe you mean Other People. People who might not say something nice. Who might say something like "Mr Brains Full of Mush" to You?

Don. You come here and ACT like a Spoiled Child who isn't getting their way. And I see your "please protect me" posts like that same child stamping his feet.

You know what you do to such children?

SMACK them on the butt.

Don, consider yourself Smacked.

Now behave yourself if you want to play here.

Michael Ross

The never-ending fight against spam!
 

We've had a torrent of people trying to "spam" here in recent days... These were almost all "registered" users (which means, they "registered" before posting).

Board spammers can write software now which can read those "Captcha" images. So they use their software to go to forums like this, register, then post a lot of spam. I've put in some extra security things in place now to make it a little tougher for them to do that.

I'm sorry for some of the spam that made it through. I'll always be vigilant in fighting spam.

My "philosophy" is to hopefully make things as easy as possible for people who use the forum, while of course keeping out the "bad guys"! Unfortunately, everything you do to keep out the "bad guys" tends to make it a little more complicated for everybody else... So you have to try to find a balance.

Because of some recent spam that was posted, I've just put in place moderation rules so that people who are posting anonymously won't have their posts appear immediately. Instead, they will go into a moderation queue, then they'll appear once they are approved. (This is not directed at those great people who post anonymously, but instead its because of some recent very offensive anonymous-spam which was just posted.) Registered users probably won't notice a thing. :)

Sorry to everyone about these problems... We'll keep the spammers out! It's a little bit like a "cold war"... As they develop better and better "offensive weapons", we need to develop better "defensive weapons" to keep them out too!

Thanks for understanding...

Best wishes,

Dien

This might work instead of screening posts beforehand...
 

Dien,

While Board Moderation of Anonymous Posters is a reasonable thing... it is Very time consuming.

I've just found out... Spam... a Sudden Increase on boards like this... is not just here. Check out this Thread about Spammers getting around Image Verification http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=286535

Steve has some good things to say. And the idea on the last post on page one, could be all that's needed. This way, the process is Automated and doesn't require a Mod to spend extra time verifying posts.

Michael Ross

Re: The never-ending fight against spam!
 

Dien and Michael,

For your info just incase you're not aware...

Of course Google unfortunately gives Top spots to particular keyword topics that maybe should be filtered a little better...

Once the word gets out, the problems and/or solutions continue expanding all over the web...

And since many subjects contain double sided need to know info, what can you really do... :confused:

http://www.spam-whackers.com/blog/20...seo-solutions/
http://www.ihelpyou.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27575

Phil

Re: The never-ending fight against spam!
 

Thanks Dien.

I think installing the akismet plugin should take care of 99% of the spam.
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=118421

And - instead of adding a moderation queue for anonymous posters, just make it so that anonymous posters can post no links. Only registered posters can post links. It'll save a lot of time.

Take away the linking abilities and the spam should go away.

Re: The never-ending fight against spam!
 

I don't know if it's a "built in" or not, but I've seen several boards where you not only had to register, but you couldn't get a link (even a sig file) to work until you'd posted at least "x" number of times.

Pete

Re: A secret....
 

Lee used Akismet on his site and it stopped the garbage completely. Worth a try. I couldn't remember the name of it...thanks, Ankesh.

I believe adding a question to the registration would only work a bit simply because many spammers are doing the original post and then turning it over to the bots, as another one of the posts referenced mentioned. A work around that might be the same solution as ABlake's forum, for example, (as mentioned in Pete's post above). New posters find it frustrating (but tolerable) but spammers wouldn't bother with the hassle.

Sandi Bowman