User registrations...
 

Tonight a couple of pranksters registered a bunch of accounts and spammed the forum... We really have no protection against that except for one of the following:

1) Disable new user registrations... (!)
2) Manually approve new registrations, possibly with a bit of a delay to kill spontaneous activity...
3) Disallow accounts with "free" emails like Hotmail or Yahoo... (I'm not even sure this would work because some of the people tonight used ordinary email addresses.)

To be honest I don't know what to do... Ideas would be appreciated!

PS - Thanks to GP2 who *called* me to let me know of the invasion... :smile:

PPS - I know you all hate that 60 second message delay thing, but it really saved us tonight...

Re: User registrations...
 

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Xyzzy [/i]
[B]2) Manually approve new registrations[/B][/QUOTE]
This has my vote!

I just had another thought. Moderate the posts of new members for the first week/month? This could be done instead of or in addition to requiring approval to join. More and more forums/groups are being forced to do this.

Maybe increase the time required between posts even more for users registered for less than a month. It would decrease the number of messages that might need to be moderated. Also it might have the added benefit of giving new members a moment to reflect on posts that they might not want to make if they were more familiar with the content here.

Joe, that is a great idea!

Did you read the manual or something? :smile:

only_human, that is unfortunately not an option... There is just one setting for all users...

I think Joe's idea will work out fine... I just need to find a way to let new people know their posts might not show up right away...

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Xyzzy [/i]
[B]I think Joe's idea will work out fine... I just need to find a way to let new people know their posts might not show up right away... [/B][/QUOTE]
I like the idea too, and you just have to indicate in the FAQ that new posters will get their posts moderated. It should be the responsibility of everybody to read the FAQ; it's like a terms of use in my opinion.

[QUOTE][i]Potential FAQ question[/i]
[B]Q: I just registered, but when I try to post, nothing appears in the thread!

A: In order to prevent this forum from being spamed, we moderate new user's posts for a month after they join. Your post will show up in the thread after a moderator has reviewed it. And after being a member for a month, your posts will be posted automatically.[/b][/QUOTE]


Having post be both a noun and a verb can make odd sentences.

Wow, I didn't know we had a FAQ... :whistle:

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Xyzzy [/i]
[B]Wow, I didn't know we had a FAQ... :whistle: [/B][/QUOTE] I honestly don't know how to take that remark. :huh:

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by eepiccolo [/i]
[B]I honestly don't know how to take that remark. :huh: [/B][/QUOTE]

FAQ-ually:grin:

FAQ's can be your best friend :grin: .

Sadly i say that much of this traffic could be avoided by blocking the @whereeverintheworld of the people who spam the forum.

I am using Free-Bee mail for forums, however many are blocking them now. To overcome this problem a few of my friends and I have put together for a DNS address. Now we have our own mail server and relay chat.

Maybe mersenneforum could have its own mail server for e-mail verification.

We have our own mailserver but it would be a waste to use it just for that...

That said, if anyone needs a POP3/webmail account, or a forward, let me know...