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Temporary Changes

10K views 36 replies 18 participants last post by  emiellucifuge 
#1 · (Edited)
Too all of our regular participating members:

Due to matters beyond our control, we have been experiencing a plethora of profile spammers ... they register, then load up every possible profile field with spam, spam links, and general promotional advertising, log off, and never return. They don't appear in the Member Directory because they haven't yet made at least two posts.

They, of course, never post and probably have no intention of doing so, since we would readily see that and wipe the post and ban them on the spot.

To combat this issue, we have TEMPORARILY turned off the access to adding/editing members profiles until we are able to put into place other controls. We are working on a resolve and hope to restore access to your profiles soon.

In the meantime, if our regular participating membership needs to have anything edited within their profile, please contact one of the staff members, and we will be able to do that manually.

Notice to all spammers:
If you are one of the profile spammers reading this, you can tell all your buddies
that they are wasting their time even registering here. The Admin/Mod Team has access to a special database where spammers are 'blacklisted' ... if any part of your registration information is on that list, you will be banned straightaway without question and/or any warnings.
 
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#3 ·
I think it would be worth encouraging all legitimate members to report any SPAM/advertising they see in TC. I always do. However, I am often frustrated by the '30 second' rule, where I can't post or search again within 30 seconds. I have never worked out why this rule exists. If I encounter two SPAMmers in close succession WITHIN 30 seconds, I have to wait and twiddle my thumbs before I can report them to the moderators.
 
#4 ·
All spam needs to be reported, and we thank those that do ... for those that don't know, there is a red triangle in the upper right part of every post ... clicking on that brings up a form for reporting spam postings. When you submit a "report", the forum software generates a priority email to all forum staff members alerting us of a problem.

And while we are on that subject, we kindly ask the members never ever reply to a spammer ... just ignore them ... replying to them confirms to them that the post has been "seen and read" and then we get 100 times more spam.

Now, about the 30 second rule.

The 30 second rule is by design ... and here's why:

There are crumbs out there who are paid to create usernames in forums like this one. Once the registration process is complete and verified, that human turns over that username to a machine ... a spam bot ... which has the capability of flooding any forum with 1,000's of new spam postings every minute.

Let's say a forum gets 60 new registrations in one day, 50 of which are spammers, and they turn over those 50 registrations to the spam bots ... who in turn begin spamming a forum all at the same time ... that's upwards of 50,000 new spam posts every minute!! The forum server crashes because of being overloaded and shuts down.

On Talk Classical & MIMF, we have a 30 second rule ... maybe a silly rule, but it also applies to spam bots, who also cannot post more than ONE single post every 30 seconds. They (the bots) give up trying and go somewhere else.

This forum averages 30 new registrations per day --- 75% of those are spammers, who, knowing about the 30 second rule, the spam bots were filling up every field within their profile with links and messages promoting this or that. Of course when we see that, we remove all that info and instantly permanently ban the user ... but it's time consuming and certain profile fields can only be edited by an administrator.

The staff eliminates tons of spam before you even see it every day. We know who the spammers are ... there is a 'blacklist' of spammers on another site which forum admins/mods have access to, and if that username or any part of their registration info is on that blacklist, they are banned straightaway without any warning.

All banned users, and their associated registration information, remain within the forum database ... so if they try to re-register, they won't be able to with that old username.

So, all said and done, we realize having to wait those 30 seconds is aggravating, but at least you might have a better appreciation of why that 30 second rule is in place. :)
 
#6 · (Edited)
On some days, it sure feels like it :eek:

As an administrator, I average 5 hours per day here and on our sister forum, MIMF. Most of my 'online' time here is spent working in the background, although I do keep abreast of the foreground areas of the forum, too.

However, the forum staff is an all volunteer team, and, I must say, extremely dedicated to the forums daily operations, as well as our 'boss', Frederik Magle.

One "perk" to being a staff member is that the 30 second rule doesn't apply to us :lol:.
When chasing a spammer, we must be able to outrun the cretins :D.

The other "perk" is watching these spammers desperately trying to edit their profiles, which of course, they can't. :devil::lol:
 
#19 ·
Hey, you are keeping the emoticons exercised, CTP, the only one that doesn't work for me is the trumpet. But emoticon selection is an art, and you are doing OK.
 
#21 ·
i hope it never happen. I was once in the forum where their entire site been compromised by hacker. the owner need to buy a new domain after that. I hope the admin overhere have 'plan B or plan C' if really something like that happen.

on the profile spamming why make it like this: only member with 50 (or more) posts will allowed to create hyperlink in their profile. Closing access to personal profile for long period may be scared away new member.
 
#26 ·
Hi Krummhorn, just recently decided it would be about time to upload a profile picture having forgotten about this thing. Any idea how long it will last?
 
#33 ·
We are hoping so - trying to get a definitive answer on when the forum software will get upgraded. When that happens, access to profiles will be enabled again.

If there is something that you need added, like your homepage, signature and such, send me a PM with that info and I'll see what I can do.
 
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