New membership procedure!

[martin]

like many similar boards, we have been under constant bombardment from spammers - we do our best to grab them by the scruff of the neck before they get a chance to post, but a few get through.............SO, as of now, if you wish to join the excellent company on this board as a member, one of the Admin team has to approve your application. Hopefully this should not present a big problem - the boards are checked throughout the day by several of us, so nobody should have to wait more than a few hours before they can post!

[Amy]

Good idea
I saw the advert for lotteries earlier

[kristen]

I wish you luck.

I'm not sure how you will deduce that a particular registration is a spammer - they all look about the same!  I suppose some domains will be suspicious: mail.ru, cashette.com, gawab.com

However, the delay between registering and being able to post will deter some less-determined spammers.

I don't know the answer, but I think that:

Approving posts until newbies get to, say, 10 posts would help.

Possibly using CAPTCHA for posts - again, perhaps only for posts up to a certain level.

Your Report Abuse tool is good.  Is that ever abused?  It seems to me that could give Weight to multiple reports from different members, again adding Weight for members who have posted often (or only showing the link for members above N posts).  Maybe it already does that ?!

Kristen

[martin]

You get a "feel" for them after a while, and if in doubt, a quick "Google" of the ip address will often throw up a list of spam postings - there is the facility to add "Captcha", but as it's a "bolt on" I'm resisting using it, as it may affect the otherwise excellent stability of the board (and is loads more work come update time!)
The difficult thing is trying to get the balance right - it is a shame that bona fide new members may have to wait a while to gain entry, but hopefully they'll think the wait worthwhile!
I will confess to being guilty of downing two totally innocent parties as a result of an itchy trigger finger, so hopefully in future we'll take slightly more considered aim!

[AndySV1K]

Dont blame you Martin,

Ive did the same on one of my forums and im considering it on the other one i have.  Its a real pain, but it makes a real difference to the spam levels!

Andy.

[wyleu]

Right that Martin's for the chop !

[Ivan]

I'm not sure but I reckon that this Wyleu fella might be guilty of spam

[Antman]

I am experimenting with blanket bans on registration for specific email and host addresses.

This seems to be eliminating a chunk of work for mods and admin by preventing the spammers and serial registrants from wasting our time. It also automatically limits the ever growing list of banned IP addresses without potentially inconveniencing genuine and existing members - for example whilst they are working abroad attempting to access from a location where a full ban has been imposed.

This does not affect anyone already registered - it only works on an initial attempt to register on the Navitron Forum.

If in the unlikely event that a genuine potential member finds themselves being rejected from registration, they should email  sales@navitron.org.uk quoting the following:
- email address
- ISP (or server) IP address
- ISP (or server) Hostname

These will then be checked and if deemed acceptable, a specific ban can be temporarily  lifted to enable you to register.

Note that all attempts to register with email or hostname addreses including any indicative reference to porn, sex, drugs etc are rejected by default!

Regards

Antman

[RogerT]

> Note that all attempts to register with email or hostname addreses including any indicative
> reference to porn, sex, drugs etc are rejected by default!

So how did frotter get through ?   Oh, sorry that would be frottage...      javascript:void(0);
Roll Eyes

[wyleu]

I'll have you know wyleu is very rude in some of the more select dialects of the Upper Zambesi.

[Antman]

To those registered AOL members (and to a lesser extent possibly Yahoo users) who have been receiving various automated messages at log-in including "having large quantities of fleas infesting their armpits"....

It appears that certain IP adresses used by genuine AOL members have also been found to be sources of Spam and multiple registrations from Proxy Servers. Accordingly those addresses were placed on the Ban List to limit the work us Mods have to do to authorise membership.
Unfortunately this also resulted in three genuine members from accessing the Forum!

I have modified the relevant 'Bans' to allow existing members to log-in. Hopefully this will solve the problem.

Apologies to all for the inconvenience.

However if anyone experiences this problem in the future pleae email  sales@navitron dot org dot uk with your IP and Hostname addresses and it can either be dealt with direct or forwarded to one of us to sort out.

Alternatively, use a non-AOL account to Register and Activate you account on the Forum. Thereafter you will be able to log-in as normal.

Regards

Antman

[renewablejohn]

ivan

I am concerned that when i have registered for the new site using the existing name and password it then says I will be notified of a confirmation procedure by email but as yet no email has been forthcoming hence I presume why this temporary link has been set up.

[Ivan]

Hi John,

We've used the same database as before, everything should have been transferred over, so there should be no need to register again. This could well be the reason that you are not getting any emails (as you already exist as a member). If I've got this wrong, or you are still having trouble (I guess everything is ok, or you wouldn't be able to post) let me know and either Martin or I will look into it


Ivan

[itsnewtome]

Hi
This is my fourth attempt to log in. It keeps telling me that my id and username are not on the data base.
I will save this in favourites incase I cant log in again. I'm sure something has gone adrift

[renewablejohn]

ivan

no if I log into the site it rejects my login and states that I have to initialize my login from an email which has not been sent. if I then request another email it does not send it to my email address. the only way I have of getting into the site is via the temporary forum route