6502.org

Did someone leave the spammer door open?

It seem stammers like the new design too!
Also i noticed avatars on some users.
What else is new?

We've been averaging more than one new spammer per hour!

Edit: Mike just disabled new sign-ups until a solution is figured out. (He might have the perfect solution in mind and maybe it just takes too long to implement before going to work in the morning-- I have no idea. I'm sure he'll tell me later.) Nearly everything else about the new software seems to be an improvement so far.

On the old version of the forum software, I had made my own modifications that cut down the spam quite a bit. I was hoping that wouldn't be necessary with this new version but that doesn't seem to be the case. I've temporarily disabled new registrations to stop it.
It's now possible to attach files to messages (requested by several users). There are other small improvements in most areas.

Mike & Garth,

Thanks for the new version. I look forward to using it. It's a shame that spammers can cause so much time to be wasted for everyone.

Thanks to Mike for updating the forum software, I like the attachment feature (for example)

One thing though: When I get an e-Mail that someone has replied on a topic I wrote to, the links have changed.

There used to be a link to jump to the post that triggered the e-Mail. Now there is only a link to jump to "the first post since your last visit" - which requires login. In the former version I could just click the link and read (even if not logged in), but in the new version I would have to login.

This is no problem on a PC - but I do follow these links on my mobile on occasion, where I don't have the login credentials stored. After all it connects via HTTP, not HTTPS, right? So I can't follow the link directly to the post, I have use the link to the topic and navigate to the last post(s).

Just an annoyance, but if it can be fixed easily (e.g. by adding the old link) I would appreciate that.

Thanks!
André

Until you figure it out, you could put up an email address and ask people to send an email if they want an account and ask them something about themselves to prove they have a real interest and that they are not a spammer. Sometimes spammers will lie about their interest but in the old days, we use to voice verify every user on bulletin board systems.

You could ban hotmail, gmail, yahoo and other free email accounts and ask them to use their isp email account but if the board is ever hacked, the hacker gets everyone's email account addresses like one did to a board I was on.

Many people don't have an email address with their ISP, although someone in the household should. My wife and sons would have to use mine. Even our son who hosts my website and some others on his server in the garage, and has quite a few email addresses himself, does not have one from the ISP. Mike did something that has been working to keep the spammers away, but if we just couldn't get a handle on it, I would want at least the first post of any user to have to be approved my a moderator before it is visible, with the case-by-case possibility of requiring more posts to be approved if we still couldn't tell for sure that the person was here for the right reasons, and make it so they can't edit their posts either until they have full approval (so they can't edit an approved post to add spam to it). In our case it would not take long at all for them to get their sign-up and their post approved, as I check very frequently. When I wanted to get on one forum--it might have been Rob Finch's bc_cpu Yahoo forum on processor design--I felt like I had to write up a resume and apply for top-secret security clearance or something, but I didn't mind a bit.

Just ask a simple question "what is your favorite 6502 based computer?" and have a moderator give the ok to an account before they can post....

That's probably too easy, since the Commodore 64 was the biggest-selling computer in history and many of them probably remember it well or could just turn around and ask someone who would have an immediate answer.

Spambots cant answer that question. They would answer: "new shoes and viagra". Makes it easy for the moderator to see....

Spambots are the majority of the problem, but there's still a surprising number of human-assisted sign-ups.

There don't seem to be any options to allow the display of your website, email and instant message details with your messages. You just get a single profile button which only works if you're logged in.

Is this right or am I missing something?

Lee.

I noticed that, too -- no website button appearing under one's posts. And a casual visitor (or a member not logged in) can't even get that info from the poster's profile. Can this situation be easily rectified, Mike -- a software default to be tweaked, perhaps? I'd be grateful to have it looked into. In the past my website has gotten about 75 referrals a month from the Forum, but I expect this figure to plummet Also it seems to me that profiles should be visible to the public simply to help convey the nature and variety of our membership.

Thanks,

Jeff

Allowing links here and there needs careful spambot blocking though.. in another forum I moderated it was common practice for spammers and spambots to add new users at an incredible rate just to have spamming links in their profile (they put them in their posts too, of course, but some don't post at all, they just create profiles). It's often difficult or impossible to remove accounts from forums due to the use of databases etc., and ordinary moderators can't usually edit away spam links from profiles. And some spammers use that 'newest member' link found on the frontpage of some forums as well - they just need a profile with links in it. And finally some will use birthday tracking features to make themselves visible that way as well (with spamming links).

I can't even begin to describe how much I hate spammers after having seen their practices.

-Tor