Moratorium On New Members

[txbanditrydr]

With spam attacks on the upswing in the last week or so I was wondering how this might fly....

No new member sign-ups for the next 30 days....

Since the board is open for all to read the good information would be available.  This might slow down the attacks for a bit and make B/A a harder target to hit.  Cast a vote or post up other ideas for consideration.

Note - if this is not possible with forum software let me know and I'll kill the whole thing.

[Ranger]

[txbanditrydr]

I think the "validation" idea was kicked around but deemed too time consuming.  It would be nice to have a web page with the crazy looking numbers/letters you have to enter.  Maybe that's what you're talking about.

Keep the ideas and opinions coming.....

[Sven]

I vote no.  People who wonder by here are likely to be doing so because they need information.  Turning away patrons (since we don't have paying customers) is bad business (even thouigh this isn't a buisness.)

The automated emails that other BBS have are just that: automated.  I don't know how time consuming it would be to maintain once it is set up.

I hate those warped characters, mostly because of the way they are implemented at most sites.  There's always some letter that's so distorted you have to just sort of guess what it might be.  And they always say "Enter the word shown" but "W8ps7" isn't a word.  

The email validation also ensure's the person typed their email address correctly.

[txbanditrydr]

I vote no.  People who wonder by here are likely to be doing so because they need information.  Turning away patrons (since we don't have paying customers) is bad business (even thouigh this isn't a buisness.)

Point well taken.... although the information on the board is still available to those seeking most answers (to topics that have been beat to death)  It wouldn't be turning away patrons (what, one or two legitimate members in the last month?) as much as trying to slow spammers - make them go elsewhere.

I could be way off base here too.  Thanks for you input Sven.  

[txbanditrydr]

Define irony.....  a spam message posted in this thread.    Good thing bots can't vote (at least I hope not)  

[Red01]

Looking thru the Admin features empowered to me, it's not something I can control. The board already makes you go thru an email response - and that must still be working because I've had to manually turn on a new member recently because their autoresponse was put in thier junk mail folder and deleted before they could respond. If these are bot attacks, the bots have figured out how to work around that.

I'd like to see the twisted character signup, but I don't think that's a feature of this boards make-up. I think Pete would have to change us over to a different format.

[CWO4GUNNER]

This is a hard one because I suspect part of the problem is on the upkeep side and it takes additional funds to support that, not to mention that someone is putting money out for this sight already. Maybe new members should have a 1 month trial and if they want to stay they can pay the member ship fee of $10 a year. It wouldn't stop spammers but it would provide additional money for upgrades to manage them better and discourage those that are just loitering. As far as the 30 day idea, like FDR said "doing nothing is worse". Just a thought.

[Red01]

The site has made enough money over the years to pay for itself and usually a few trinkets at the BOSS Rally from the ads, so Pete hasn't had to ask for contributions since we left the old board a few years ago.

The board gets addition kickbacks if you click on one of the advertisers' links AND make a purchase. Something to keep in mind if you want to help support the site and plan on buying from one of the advertisers anyway.

[CWO4GUNNER]

OK, I will have to check it out and see if I need something which is what usually spears a purchase from me, that and price, but I will keep the donation idea in mined. Incredible, no wonder vendors with BBS boards don't complain about sales with the other advertisers that pay for space. So in a way the B12.5 is probably good news in any configuration from the management's point of view, interesting! I better watch what I say about those B12.5 as thats the BBS's future bread and butter...LOL

[pmackie]

I vote Yes, but only because I feel for you guys dealing with the recent spam...

If you have other ideas, I'm OK with them as well.

I know it is additional work, but if there are only a couple of new members a month, can an admin task be to approve them before they post? Would this not be less work than dealing with the current spam attacks?

[PitterB4]

Looking thru the Admin features empowered to me, it's not something I can control. The board already makes you go thru an email response - and that must still be working because I've had to manually turn on a new member recently because their autoresponse was put in thier junk mail folder and deleted before they could respond. If these are bot attacks, the bots have figured out how to work around that.

I'd like to see the twisted character signup, but I don't think that's a feature of this boards make-up. I think Pete would have to change us over to a different format.

Paul - we do have: Enable Visual Confirmation
Requires users enter a code defined by an image when registering.  These aren't bots, I don't think. We do have the ability to turn on Admin approval of new members.  I'm honestly not sure what that process is.  I think it sends a link to a predetermined email addy.  To make that an effective killer of a-holes, we'd have to go look at their profile, see if they have a porn-related web addy linked or something like that.  I think we're getting about 100 new members a month (mostly a-holes).  Seems like it would be REALLY time consuming.

I'm going to test it out and see what's involved.  I'll report back....

[Ranger]

[stormi]

No new member sign-ups for the next 30 days....
<snip>
This might slow down the attacks for a bit and make B/A a harder target to hit.  
<snip>
Note - if this is not possible with forum software let me know and I'll kill the whole thing.

With the forum the way it is right now, we can't ban signups.  That said,.. we can set it to admin approval and ignore the signups.  Or even just set it to admin approval and approve the ones that are legit.  I have my own forum and that's what I've set mine to.  

It's more work than letting users sign themselves up, but it's less work than punting 25 posts from each idiot.

There is a "mod" that can be done, that will allow what you mention, but that will require Pete to do it, as none of us have access to the webserver.

Here are some links about what I've been nattering about:

http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=393503
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=1404100

This is more than likely some of what's hitting us...

Forum Poster allow you to post any message you want to over 26000 forum boards in just minutes.

The current version can post to
1. phpBB Forum Boards from version 2.0.0 to 2.0.20 (http://www.phpbb.com/)
2. Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com/)
3. Snitz Forums 2000 (http://forum.snitz.com/)

Forum Poster automatically register a user with the username, e-mail and password you typed on the board. It login as the registered user on the board and then post it. All made automatically. With just one click!

http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=393503&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

"I was thinking about removing the WWW column on the Memberlist page and from the Profile page. I figure the main reason for joining is to get the advertiser's web site in front of people, and the only way to do that would be to actually /post/, which none of my spammers have (to date). Most of them don't actually confirm the memership, in fact, but some do, and visual confirmation is turned on, so I think they're mostly people, not bots. "

[stormi]

Yes
I don't recall but could I offer a suggestion?

A "validation" email be sent so the new user is required to validate their email account after registering?
That should put an end to the spambots

The forum is already set up that way.  It has the Visual confirmation setup and the user gets an email.

The spambots don't seem to require some of that stuff, or the human behind it is providing that small bit of input.