Somebody get rid of nsk

[RuralWeb]

<H4>Comprehensive Support

• Free email support
• 30 days free telephone support
• Online Knowledge Base
• Actinic Community forums

Ive just seen this on the actinic website - I thought we had won the battle to have refernces to the forum removed from the "product support" sales pitch. This implies that you get ongoing support from the forum in the same way as forum membership being given at product purchase.</H4>

[Jan]

FYI, I've just banned a spammer, they joined last wednesday but didn't post until today, they appeared to choose 10 posts at random to reply to .. not new posts, just 10 from the last day or two, same spam on each post. I did a google search on their name and found 10 pages of forum username entries for them, some with no entries on the forum yet and some with 1 or two entries or the same spam message.

The main difference I saw was that some forums had the post with links and some had it without (therefore annoying but harmless).

They had a gmail account for their email address as well.

Regards,

[Mark H]

"Thanks for the offer of policing it, but we shouldn't expect you guys to do that for us except as a last resort."

Thanks for policing it for us Jan, from wherever you are

I note from the members list that a couple more have joined today. Also the front page of the forum says:

Welcome to our newest member, joef5052881

Welcome indeed.

[TraceyHand]

I note from the members list that a couple more have joined today. Also the front page of the forum says:

Welcome to our newest member, joef5052881

Welcome indeed.

and the psychic award for Wednesday goes to......

[leehack]

Thanks for the offer of policing it, but we shouldn't expect you guys to do that for us except as a last resort.

There are probably 10 members who would happily do this with no bother and would not mind at all. That would be for the benefit of all. Release the shackles and the control, 'we shouldn't expect' just reads as 'we must keep control' to me. Who in their right mind would refuse some free assistance in keeping the spammers effect to a minimum? It's a big forum, with minimal modding, join the community spirit and let the 'community' help you.

[Darren B]

Lee i could not agree more, its not like granting access to the the penthouse suite at actinic towers, the gold key on a chain, life time membership thing

D

[RuralWeb]

I thought that the forum belonged to the community not actinic towers all actinic will do by maintaining total control is to drive people away or force them to set up a true community forum with moderation by the community.

[Jan]

Jan, from wherever you are

I'm on planet Jan of course ... just like normal :-)

Regards,

[Mark H]

Glad to hear it Jan, there's obviously quite a time difference from the UK (unless you're just staying up late)

[cdicken]

OK - there's a mod installed now that should catch a lot of it. Here's hoping...

[cdicken]

OK - as of last night we have blocked all Chinese IP addresses and also auto-moderate new posts that are from new customers and contain links. No spam on the forum this morning - so it seems to be working.

[pinbrook]

Much appreciated Chris

[guccij]

OK - as of last night we have blocked all Chinese IP addresses

Excellent, thanks. How long before the little critters find some other way around it though

I'm wondering how this IP thing works, actually. For example, I'm in Switzerland, with a Swiss IP address.

But if I access the office back in London using PC Anywhere, and come on this forum through that PC, which IP address would show up?

[cdicken]

Spam posting is essentially a dumb automated thing. You plug in some forum URLs, some usernames and passwords and let a crappy little vb script do the rest. If they can't reach this forum, there are plenty of forums without any kind of protection. They don't care.

[Artisan]

Good luck with the mod and the IP blocking, Chris, thanks.

Personally, I think Duncan's hit the nail - have a single 'semi-open' pre-sales forum, with all the rest only postable-to by users who have supplied an Actinic key.

That way, nobody's asked to part with any money (which implies that they're buying more support), and the spammers would be very lucky indeed to accidentally come up with a real key.

Malcolm