Actions we've taken to prevent spam

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Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby rdearman » Wed Mar 02, 2016 9:45 am

Hello everyone,

The administrators and moderators of the forum have taken the decision that all new user posts will have to be approved by a moderator or admin. This is obviously a lot more work for the moderation team, but they've all agreed because we want to make the user experiance as nice as possible. This will mean messages from users with less than 3 approved posts will have to be approved. I personally would like to thank all the moderators for taking on this additional workload, and appologise in advance to the new users who wish to use the forum in good faith, but have been delayed by these scumbag spammers.

This doesn't of course mean the end of the spammers, but should reduce the amount.
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Re: Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby Elenia » Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:03 pm

Thanks to all the moderators for all the hard work, and the commitment to more work in the future.
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Re: Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby tomgosse » Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:11 pm

You wrote:
This will mean messages from users with less than 3 approved posts will have to be approved.

Does this mean that all users need to have three approved posts or just new users? The reason I ask is that I just posted a reply to this topic: Time to study to reach a new level. I got a message that says my post needs to be approved. If that is your intention, I will live with it. But, if you only meant new users need to be approved, then something is amiss. I'm not complaining, and I apologize if I'm confused. Which happens more and more often. :roll:

EDIT: I did not get a message about approval when I posted this message. :D
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Re: Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby emk » Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:15 pm

It looks like something is amiss: It seems that if a new user starts a thread, then all messages in that thread need to be approved. This seems a bit weird, but I'll let rdearman take another look.

We apologize hugely for the inconvenience. It's going to take a day or two to sort out the kinks and help discourage the spammers, I'm afraid. Please let us know if anything is broken.
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Re: Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby tomgosse » Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:19 pm

emk wrote:It looks like something is amiss: It seems that if a new user starts a thread, then all messages in that thread need to be approved. This seems a bit weird, but I'll let rdearman take another look.

We apologize hugely for the inconvenience. It's going to take a day or two to sort out the kinks and help discourage the spammers, I'm afraid. Please let us know if anything is broken.

Thank you to all the admins and mods for all the hard work that you put into this forum to keep it running. :D
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Re: Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby Ogrim » Wed Mar 02, 2016 1:20 pm

emk wrote:It looks like something is amiss: It seems that if a new user starts a thread, then all messages in that thread need to be approved. This seems a bit weird, but I'll let rdearman take another look.


That is certainly the case. I just commented on the same thread as tomgosse and got the message that my post must be approved.
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Re: Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby outcast » Wed Mar 02, 2016 2:38 pm

Can confirm the above. Don't envy the mods right now, having to approve messages and figure out a bug!

Or it could be because the starting thread is a message that itself is not approved yet, all answers after have to be approved along with it. But then why did we get to see the original thread?
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Re: Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby rdearman » Wed Mar 02, 2016 3:43 pm

THe problem is that permissions is on a "per room" basis. I seemed to have clicked the wrong button somewhere. I'm digging through it now. SOrry for the hassle, promise to iron out the bugs as quick as I can!
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Re: Actions we've taken to prevent spam

Postby rdearman » Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:02 pm

OK, a quick update on the problems people were having earlier. Basically some dipstick (me) changed the system to check permissions before allow posting. Then I setup newly registered users to have to go on the moderation queue. But of course once you start having the computer check permissions, it checks everyones! In the General Discussion area that same dipstick (me) didn't give registered users permissions to post, so it used the ones which were set... thereby making everyone who posted in the General Discussion area go into the moderation queue.

I'm cleared and approved all the posts, and modified the permissions for registered users to allow posts, polls, all that good stuff. So it should be ok now, if anyone has any issues posting please PM me, or if the problem is PM's (which shouldn't be affected) please post in this thread. I'll monitor closely over the next couple of days and try to repair any strange permissions stuff as quick as I can.

One other note is the "flood limits" work. This is a restriction which stops quickly posting one message after another (computerised spamming) and flooding the forum with posts. I know this works because the system stopped me posting test messages and made me wait! :lol:
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