Evening folks, Mr. K here.
The site is now attracting almost 30,000 different people each month - an amount that astounds Vic and I. Along with that however is the ever increasing amount of spam posts and fake accounts used to:
1) post spammy threads or
2) PM, email and harass other, real, registered users
What we are doing to combat this is to place all new accounts into a temporary/holding account status until certain conditions are met. Newly registered users under the temporary account status will not be able to perform some actions that are hot spots for spam bots, things like:
1) sending unlimited PMs
2) editing their signature to include links to spammy sites
3) emailing other registered users
This temporary status is lifted once a variety of conditions are met - conditions that humans typically do already - like search the forum, write a post, log in a few times, read threads. Spam bots have very typical behavior which differ. Bots typically create an account and then in a short period of time start firing off messages without stopping to read posts, write posts, search, etc. They would be blocked under this new system.
If you notice anything funny with your account in the next couple of days, do let me know. Everyone who has been on the site for more than a few days should have full access to the site as before and not be under temporary status.
That's all for now! Keep posting and keep it orange!
The site is now attracting almost 30,000 different people each month - an amount that astounds Vic and I. Along with that however is the ever increasing amount of spam posts and fake accounts used to:
1) post spammy threads or
2) PM, email and harass other, real, registered users
What we are doing to combat this is to place all new accounts into a temporary/holding account status until certain conditions are met. Newly registered users under the temporary account status will not be able to perform some actions that are hot spots for spam bots, things like:
1) sending unlimited PMs
2) editing their signature to include links to spammy sites
3) emailing other registered users
This temporary status is lifted once a variety of conditions are met - conditions that humans typically do already - like search the forum, write a post, log in a few times, read threads. Spam bots have very typical behavior which differ. Bots typically create an account and then in a short period of time start firing off messages without stopping to read posts, write posts, search, etc. They would be blocked under this new system.
If you notice anything funny with your account in the next couple of days, do let me know. Everyone who has been on the site for more than a few days should have full access to the site as before and not be under temporary status.
That's all for now! Keep posting and keep it orange!
