Guest Posting Re-enabled

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Sharkey
Original Founder
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:00 am
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Guest Posting Re-enabled

Post by Sharkey »

Yesterday, I got a message from a user who was not able to register for the forum because the visual confirmation message was not appearing. In order to allow guest postings and registrations, I turned off the confirmation images and hoped that the other spam prevention modifications would prevent spammers from flooding the forum with crap posts.

Wrong.

Apparently, some of the more important preventions were tied to the confirmation image and a virtual wave of nasty garbage came flowing in, over 150 trash messages in 24 hours.

Yeuch...

As a result, I have disabled guest posting until I can get things working properly again and stop the filth from arriving. Apologies to those of you who post as guest users, I'll do my best to have something in place to prevent abuse of the guest posting service on the forum so you can return to active status soon. Stay with us...
Sharkey
Original Founder
Posts: 1364
Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 4:00 am
Contact:

Post by Sharkey »

I'm pleased to announce that Guest posting has been turned back on here on the forum. I've completed some code changes that will prevent automated posting of spam messages through the Guest account. We may still get the occasional spam posted by a human (I use the term loosely), but nothing like the overpowering flood that came in a week or two ago.

The new code uses "textual confirmation", or as I call it, "Insult-A-Spammer". In order to post as a guest (or register as a user for that matter), you have to supply the answer to a question, both of which are given on the page. All of the questions are aimed at spammers, basically to post spam, a spammer has to eat a booger in order for their message to appear. Here's the list of questions and answers so far:

Q: How much does Mr. Sharkey hate spam?
A: a lot

Q: How many brain cells does a spammer have?
A: zero

Q: What is a spammers favorite form of entertainment?
A: dead dog porn

Q: What is a spammers favorite meal?
A: dirt

Q: What pets does a spammer have?
A: dead bugs

Q: How do spammers reproduce?
A: post spam on my forum

Q: Why do spammers want to deface my personal forum?
A: because they can

Q: How many friends does a spammer have?
A: none, they spammed them all away

Q: How many spammers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: all of them

If anyone would like to submit some new insulting questions and answers, I'll add them to the database. They have to be non-profane, this is a family-friendly site after all... The greater the number of insults, the better protection the system will afford.

In all, I hope that this is an effective means of keeping the spam to a minimum, as well as a better alternative to the confusing and difficult CAPTCHA images that were used in the past. Many users complained about those, and even I found them infuriatingly difficult at times.
Griff
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Posts: 337
Joined: Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:25 pm
Location: Off-Grid
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Post by Griff »

:lol: :lol: :lol: Man, I'll have to put on my thinking cap and come up with some more boogers to feed 'em! :lol: :lol: :lol:
~(G)Q Arduously Avoiding Assimilation
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