We can and we've discussed it. The issues are what was stated above. That's time consuming, too. Plus legitimate new members often join specifically to ask a question. It seems unfair to make them wait because of these a-holes.
I wonder if it would be worth sending this one to poll nowadays.
less spam for a little more hassle on sign up?
Are we losing any members because of the spam yet? That's a step that may happen down the road.
I assume that when it was discussed before, we weren't getting spam bots injecting between 10 and 25 messages into the database at a time
(yes, I've been reading about phpBB and it's current various security issues.... )
I would hope that new users would understand a small delay in order to not be inundated once they're members.
In the end though, it's not my choice, just a thought.
The ones signing up and never posting are still getting their way, when we don't prune the list. What they're looking for is higher ratings on search engines like Google. The more places their crap ends up and is indexed on google and friends, the higher the rating.
There are modules that can be downloaded for phpBB that will allow admins to prune groups of users at a time, or to not have to search for a particular user, then ban them. The modules streamline the process making it easier to admin the MFers.
Ranger - that's an interesting suggestion but Paul and I are "limited" admins. We don't have access to the tables and stuff. Pete keeps that access himself. The only way we have to ban an address is to find the post, look up the IP addresses for the post, then go into the admin panel and paste them into the "Ban Box" in there.
Ranger is actually refering to the apache log files, and -Pete- may not have access to those. One of the pitfalls of hosting with a company. Limited control. That said, I think phpBB also has a module to retain this info as well.
As mentioned though, banning whole blocks of the population is counter productive. I suspect that one spammer from Washington getting Paul, and various others on the list from the area, banned by doing that, would make for an unhappy Rob, as the sole acting admin, as well as several of the users that were blocked for no reason.
Really, it's a case of one person ( or a few) ruining it for the rest of us.
Do we let them continue with their business because we don't want to limit the rest of the population, or do we tighten up the rules, at the risk of inconveniencing a few, for the enjoyment of the majority?
Tough question.
p.s. - sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense. I spent an "all nighter" being an obsessive admin on my own server.
