HatEnjoyer
Active member
Thanks, Joel!
Spammer on the forum
- Thread starter HatEnjoyer
- Start date
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Well-known member
He has returned. He is reported
I am deleting as we speak!
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Well-known member
coert65
Well-known member
It is indeed still free. The forum exists because of members donating, and the generosity of Brian & others.
I used a poor choice of words, I was more referring to there being some way to prevent people from joining, like an admin having to approve someone's account before they can join/ post.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Well-known member
With the amount of spammers popping up lately it seems like it should be implemented if possible.
We can’t keep up with this James. Hopefully Joel will see this and what we actually need is the ability to delete and ban as Moderators with one button. Not nine. By the time we do that another Spam machine has shown up. Thanks everybody who puts a reply in this thread but I assure you that we are seeing it, we are just having a problem keeping up with it.
I've gone ahead and changed the CAPTCHA we're using to a more secure one and also reconfigured the forum so that new users can't post spam.
That said, what I've noticed is many of the users who have been spamming are users that signed up some time ago (usually years ago) with obviously fake / burner Gmail accounts. That is, accounts that signed up before we had the protections in place that we do now, and as such, are able to effectively bypass them.
With this in mind, I'm going to start pruning old accounts that are inactive, which should help reduce the spam problem somewhat.
Update: I've disabled ~1500 accounts that I suspect were registered by spammers and would've been used sooner or later. Obviously do let me know if anyone was disabled in error.
That said, what I've noticed is many of the users who have been spamming are users that signed up some time ago (usually years ago) with obviously fake / burner Gmail accounts. That is, accounts that signed up before we had the protections in place that we do now, and as such, are able to effectively bypass them.
With this in mind, I'm going to start pruning old accounts that are inactive, which should help reduce the spam problem somewhat.
Update: I've disabled ~1500 accounts that I suspect were registered by spammers and would've been used sooner or later. Obviously do let me know if anyone was disabled in error.
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Thanks Joel!
Amybellars
Well-known member
Thanks Joel
The forum is still free and will remain so, it was never intended to be some "source of revenue". However, there are some expenses and time involved in keeping things running smoothly. I deeply appreciate any and all donations received and this is why I endeavour to thank personally anyone who does contribute. A few years back, we had a problem with spammers accessing the PM feature and sending their garbage to the membership. As a result, Joel changed the system to require a certain amount of forum posts before a new member could contact others. To my mind, spam is an unfortunate part of the net and will always prove to be an issue. I have tried to eliminate as much as possible recently and my thanks to Tony and James for their efforts as well. Hopefully, Joel's work will give us more protection.
Kaiser Wilhelm II
Well-known member
Very Good, Many Thanks to Joel.
Pleeeease don’t back away. We cannot afford to lose your knowledge. You and so many others who are all members here. This little Forum is pulling in more and Imperial collectors from around the world, as we are (reasonably) polite and as said, free. But not free for Brian. Many years he struggles to keep the Forum paid but still it’s here for us. So donate to keep this alive. Spammer programs will never stop the assault. When you see spam BS, we’re probably on it
