Mysterious banning for spam has hit again...

Still banned - using VPN as a workaround.

Holding my breath this time. Been a victim too of this too often, but at least at this point I have some workarounds in my back pocket *smile*. It is a shock though, to be banned for no apparent reason. Especially if one has never been banned from a forum before.

Today i got the same ban, ip banned for spamming?

Namso wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 10, 2025 2:00 pm

Today i got the same ban, ip banned for spamming?

I haven't banned any IP addresses in a long, long time because of collateral damage.

I ban real spammers but only their account name.....I don't include the IP addresses.

I haven't heard back from Carolyn.

Think the ban got lifted, so no worries

Trying to combat spam by banning suspected source IP addresses is useless and mostly causes false positives. If that's what they're doing, they should stop immediately.

McSleepy

Amazingly, unbanned again.... for now.
Let's see if it lasts.

Some stuff was done by IT yesterday (don't ask me what because I wasn't told what) but I was told to tell you guys/gals that something was tried to see if it helped or not.

So those of you with the banning of IP address issues.....check again and report back success or no success.

Success for now at least. Worked fine yesterday evening, and I am in now with no VPN.
Thanks!

I'm back. I was in SLC for over two weeks because of another death in the family and magically when I got home, I'm back no more ban. It apparently didn't like the hotels IP address.

Folks off topic but if you don't have a will or trust set up do so! My husband was only in his early 60's and my brother in law was not much older. Both unexpected and totally out of the blue. You just never know what tomorrow is going to bring.

I suspect based on the fact that people can use a VPN or a hotspot to login that the banning is based on IP address.I don’t know what application you’re using to create your website. I run a different website and use WordPress. I know that there are anti-spam plug-ins for it that are based on the IP address. If your site is using one of these, there may be a separate log for it Depending on which one you’re using. There is a large number of plug-ins so I can’t debug it from here but have your whoever is running the IT for you check to see what plug-ins you’re using for anti-spam then they should be able to see if it has its own log of what it’s blocking. I have no way of knowing if there’s a way to see what Ruhle has been tipped. For those their baned, It could easily be that someone has borrowed your wife Wi-Fi router and either had an infected computer that was a bot on it. That was pumping out Spam. For those that have been banned you might want to check the log on your Wi-Fi router and most of them have a way to limit who can use it by Mack address. This would lockdown anyone borrowing your Wi-Fi. On your Wi-Fi, you might also be able to set up a VPN automatically that would change the IP address to avoid the spam. It’s been a while since I’ve dug into this level of detail. Before I had a pituitary tumor, I worked in computer Security for a government agency and managed one of the networks. Some of this information is rattling around in the back of my brain if I can recall at all.

I hope this helps in a little way

I'm having small issues logging in. only once has it given an error message. if does again, i'll be sure to report what that message is. mainly it just takes much longer than usual and even that is intermittent.

what i've noticed over the last week is that some avatars seem to be missing, including that of pugsy. have no idea if this is related or not.

zonker wrote: ↑

Thu Jul 24, 2025 5:27 pm

I'm having small issues logging in. only once has it given an error message. if does again, i'll be sure to report what that message is. mainly it just takes much longer than usual and even that is intermittent.

what i've noticed over the last week is that some avatars seem to be missing, including that of pugsy. have no idea if this is related or not.

I've never really had problems logging in, or being banned, but I have seen the blank images for avatars (the site looks so much better that way! )

McSleepy

McSleepy wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 25, 2025 12:36 pm

I've never really had problems logging in, or being banned, but I have seen the blank images for avatars (the site looks so much better that way! )

McSleepy

are you saying the site could use less of those sights?

zonker wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 25, 2025 12:55 pm

McSleepy wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 25, 2025 12:36 pm

I've never really had problems logging in, or being banned, but I have seen the blank images for avatars (the site looks so much better that way! )

McSleepy

are you saying the site could use less of those sights?

... and many other "distractions'!

McSleepy