What's Going On With The Forum

[forumadmin]

Hello everyone. Sorry for the mess around here lately, it seems the spammers are running amok on the board. We're currently working on cleaning things up and adding in some preventative measures. We hope to have things back to normal soon.

Thanks for your patience

[bendauphinee]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions and support and patience, and we apologize that everything got snowed under for a bit there.

We've managed to clear out all of the most recent deluge of spam posts. We are working on longer term solutions to the problem.

[Hannibal 2]

Thanks for the update, pleased to hear some action is being taken at last! This forum has been incredibly supportive for so many and really needs to be more secure.

[chunkyfrog]

Thank you, from one of your greenest fans.

[RonS]

Thank you and GOOD LUCK!!!

[Holden4th]

Thanks for your work. Can we have a new registration system please? I also think that we should all be asked to reregister if this is put in place.

[Goofproof]

Still , not under control, still being spammed rate getting faster, new log-ins being set. Jim

[Pugsy]

Got 6 newly created spammer IDs showing online right now.

[Pugsy]

16 spammer IDs newly created...showing online now and the spam bots are getting fired up.
Won't be long before we can't keep up removing them again.

[chunkyfrog]

I have five books that need reading.
Got to clean my glasses and get cracking.

[Elle]

Are spammers IDs created by a bot and read as random letter/numbers? I googled one of them called sked1971 and unless the spammers randomly chose someone's internet ID it is an actual person.

[D.H.]

How about temporarily closing the forum to new registrants? That way you can knock the spammers off and they can't set up new IDs.

When you get the new registrations under control, then reopen registration.

BTW, if I need to re-register, that would be OK.

[edfreeman]

Are spammers IDs created by a bot and read as random letter/numbers? I googled one of them called sked1971 and unless the spammers randomly chose someone's internet ID it is an actual person.

The spammers you see are bots. There are people who programmed the bots, of course, but the bots do all the web crawling, looking for places to deposit their "advertisements," creating the logins, and then very prolifically making posts. Someone said in the chat section that this forum is running 10+ year old software, so hosing the bots down will likely be very tough, especially with the comparatively loose account creation and posting requirements, bots (and forum software) have advanced their sophistication. Something will have to change.

[Elle]

I just wondered why after pages of IDs with lots of letters there was one that looked "normal" and wondered if bots were picking up ID off internet users after creating so many that look alike.
Not making sense I am sure.

[edfreeman]

Sure, some of the bots likely mine the web for all manner of info to appear "legit." Tough to do, of course, when there's 20 others posting up gibberish.

IP banning is usually more effective, and I'd bet it would stop quite a bit of what we're seeing.