The battle with the spam bots

[reoracer]

Looks like you've had your hands full recently around here. *Hands Michael a sledgehammer for the spammers' 'puters* Thanks for all you are doing to keep the Zone a safe and happy place.

Jen

[Michael]

A couple of nasty ones with offensive words that I hadn't thought of yet got through last night... sorry about that.

[microkoe]

man, thats terrible they keep targeting this site!! But, just means there are works being done here and God is in Control of it!!!!

[yamasaaaki har har]

I think we have yet to make a substitute for the four-letter "p" word (that rhymes with corn) - I saw a spam post with that word on it

By the way - I want to thank you (Michael or whoever) for helping control the spam. I see there is still some coming but there's a lot less and that's great. Thank you so much!

[Michael]

Is that p-word a swear? I guess I could put a filter on it, but I never thought of it as profanity.

Sorry about the Britney pic. It's getting deleted right now.

[yamasaaaki har har]

I don't think it's a cuss, but you've filtered out other words that aren't cusses, such as body parts and medicine names.

Not a big deal but it's your choice

[Michael]

I've kicked some butts (blocked IP addresses) and taken some names (blocked usernames) for the bots that posted a bunch of spam in the last few days. I have also renamed "Off-Topic" as "Other Topics" because "Off-Topic" as a name for a forum area is spam bait. Please remember, before you get on here and post angry messages about there being a dozen posts, that before Micah gave me the power to do things like this, there were dozens and dozens at any given time, including many with pictures embedded. The topic list regularly came up with obscene language on it, and reading the Zone had become something like swimming in the toilet. Things are MUCH better now! This is a very imperfect world; we don't have anyone on here 24 hours a day. The board is run by volunteers. Complaining may let you vent your frustration, but it does NOT make things get cleaned up more quickly. In fact, I don't know about other administrators, but when I log on here and see people griping at me, it kind of makes me want to close my browser and not bother with it (I fix things anyway, because I've made that promise). Think about how it would make YOU feel if you were coming on the board to check and see that things were OK, and you discovered that people were complaining that you weren't doing things when they thought you should.

[winterlens]

Complaining may let you vent your frustration, but it does NOT make things get cleaned up more quickly. In fact, I don't know about other administrators, but when I log on here and see people griping at me, it kind of makes me want to close my browser and not bother with it (I fix things anyway, because I've made that promise). Think about how it would make YOU feel if you were coming on the board to check and see that things were OK, and you discovered that people were complaining that you weren't doing things when they thought you should.

Michael,

For my part, I don't intend to complain. I appreciate the fact that you guys volunteer to do this and donate your time. (I, at least, volunteer quite a bit of my time during the week on other projects, and I understand how you feel.)

I've attempted to offer constructive options that could be pursued that would cut down on the moderation workload. Spending a bit of time up-front with the stylesheet and modifying the posting submission form should not take too much time, at least, and I don't think that changing the logic for accpeting posts should be overly difficult, either.

I'll be happy to try it if you like.

[Michael]

I've attempted to offer constructive options that could be pursued that would cut down on the moderation workload. Spending a bit of time up-front with the stylesheet and modifying the posting submission form should not take too much time, at least, and I don't think that changing the logic for accpeting posts should be overly difficult, either.

I'll be happy to try it if you like.

Well, the board is not mine... Micah has given me just about every admin privilege available, so I've been able to make some changes and tweaks and that's why it's gotten SO much better. You'd have to go to Micah and see if he is interested in letting you work on things a bit. One issue is that he's running Postgres and not MySQL; I have a lot of experience with MySQL but really none with Postgres. So that's been a minor road block in installing a few of the spam-stopping fixes that are out there.

I need to upgrade it to the newest version of phpbb... we are one version-level behind and maybe whatever is fixed now is what the bots are using to get in. <SIGH>

[adrinux]

folks, just to notify you, there are new spans posting things at the main forum
come on, is just a matter of deleting theirs accounts

[bakersfieldpethead]

Hey

Over at another board, they had to setup what they call "A Secret Handshake" there is a sticky message on the board that takes you to a page where the secret "Screen Name" and "Pass Word" is, they keep this for one year, and then the following year they change the Screen Name and Pass Word. But it has kept the Bots from coming back and registering.

You can check out just how they have it setup at http://messageboard.tapeop.com/

They even have it setup to where in order to view someones profile or change your own you have to type in the Screen Name and Password as well. This is very effective so far.