calculatedChaos Gaming

I updated the forum software. Because of this some things may be broken. So far everything looks okay.

The new update did a few things. The thing that most people should care about is that it allows me to setup a 'New User' group with restricted permissions to help thwart spam users.

I setup the new group to apply to any user with less than two posts. New users can read the entire forum, but they are only able to post (New Topic and Reply) in the
Introduce Yourself to the Community forum until they have at least two posts.

The reason for doing this is to try and reduce the spam (or at least contain it).

The second thing that the new update allowed me to do was change the registration confirmation method. Instead of using a CAPTCHA (which I hate with all my life), I am now able to use a real language question. Bots have figured out how to get past an image test with a script. What is a lot more difficult is answering a question like 'Is ice hot or cold?', something that me or you could easily determine.

For admins, there are some slightly improved features on the admin panel. I won't get into details but there are a few things that require less steps that I'm sure you'll notice.

Please let me know if you run into any forum issues. I can fix pages pretty quick but it's hard for me to go though everything to make sure it is working properly. I tested being able to register and the new user settings so that stuff should be good to go.

-Captain

Thank God, we're finally freed from the spam bots!

Thanks. The frequent bots were really the only complaint I can think of.

So far so good. Normally I come on here every morning and delete anywhere from 10 to 25 spammers. I have a big goose egg of spammers to delete this morning.

We'll see how the week goes but we should be in pretty good shape.

Edit: I'm not going to make changes yet but I';m leaning towards changing the new user rules to just enforce a 'Users must create an intro thread before posting elsewhere' rule instead of the two posts rule.

Seems spammers aren't getting past the human test.

is there a way that you could make the new users pass tampashrews' intro thread fail test?

spleenter wrote:is there a way that you could make the new users pass tampashrews' intro thread fail test?

Test require work though.

I saw newuser2, I tried to post on his intro thread.

Why did you take it down?

That was my test account to make sure everything was working. I deleted the account after I saw that it was working.

captainAngry wrote:
The reason for doing this is to try and reduce the spam

This I am happy about. Like more than any of you realize.

The active topics link (View -> Active Topics) is broken and sends me too a search page.

Yes, No more Spammers

Success

I removed the new users posting restrictions since we have had absolutely 0 spammers since I enabled the human test vs the CAPTCHA. I'll leave it this way until there is a problem.

Also, I'll look at the (View -> Active Topics) link issue.

BIG SUCCESS

captainAngry wrote:I updated the forum software. Because of this some things may be broken. So far everything looks okay.

The new update did a few things. The thing that most people should care about is that it allows me to setup a 'New User' group with restricted permissions to help thwart spam users.

I setup the new group to apply to any user with less than two posts. New users can read the entire forum, but they are only able to post (New Topic and Reply) in the
Introduce Yourself to the Community forum until they have at least two posts.

The reason for doing this is to try and reduce the spam (or at least contain it).

The second thing that the new update allowed me to do was change the registration confirmation method. Instead of using a CAPTCHA (which I hate with all my life), I am now able to use a real language question. Bots have figured out how to get past an image test with a script. What is a lot more difficult is answering a question like 'Is ice hot or cold?', something that me or you could easily determine.

For admins, there are some slightly improved features on the admin panel. I won't get into details but there are a few things that require less steps that I'm sure you'll notice.

Please let me know if you run into any forum issues. I can fix pages pretty quick but it's hard for me to go though everything to make sure it is working properly. I tested being able to register and the new user settings so that stuff should be good to go.

-Captain

There had been no spam in months

Why do you like resurrecting threads that are months old? there has been no spam because of this update.