# Temporary Changes



## Krummhorn

Too all of our regular participating members:

Due to matters beyond our control, we have been experiencing a plethora of profile spammers ... they register, then load up every possible profile field with spam, spam links, and general promotional advertising, log off, and never return. They don't appear in the Member Directory because they haven't yet made at least two posts.

They, of course, never post and probably have no intention of doing so, since we would readily see that and wipe the post and ban them on the spot.

To combat this issue, we have TEMPORARILY turned off the access to adding/editing members profiles until we are able to put into place other controls. We are working on a resolve and hope to restore access to your profiles soon.

In the meantime, if our regular participating membership needs to have anything edited within their profile, please contact one of the staff members, and we will be able to do that manually.

*Notice to all spammers: 
*If you are one of the profile spammers reading this, you can tell all your buddies 
that they are wasting their time even registering here. The Admin/Mod Team has access to a special database where spammers are 'blacklisted' ... if any part of your registration information is on that list, you will be banned straightaway without question and/or any warnings.


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## Huilunsoittaja

ohhh that explains it. thanks for that.


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## Delicious Manager

I think it would be worth encouraging all legitimate members to report any SPAM/advertising they see in TC. I always do. However, I am often frustrated by the '30 second' rule, where I can't post or search again within 30 seconds. I have never worked out why this rule exists. If I encounter two SPAMmers in close succession WITHIN 30 seconds, I have to wait and twiddle my thumbs before I can report them to the moderators.


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## Krummhorn

All spam needs to be reported, and we thank those that do ... for those that don't know, there is a red triangle in the upper right part of every post ... clicking on that brings up a form for reporting spam postings. When you submit a "report", the forum software generates a priority email to all forum staff members alerting us of a problem.

And while we are on that subject, we kindly ask the members never ever reply to a spammer ... just ignore them ... replying to them confirms to them that the post has been "seen and read" and then we get 100 times more spam.

Now, about the 30 second rule.

The 30 second rule is by design ... and here's why:

There are crumbs out there who are paid to create usernames in forums like this one. Once the registration process is complete and verified, that human turns over that username to a machine ... a spam bot ... which has the capability of flooding any forum with 1,000's of new spam postings every minute.

Let's say a forum gets 60 new registrations in one day, 50 of which are spammers, and they turn over those 50 registrations to the spam bots ... who in turn begin spamming a forum all at the same time ... *that's upwards of 50,000 new spam posts every minute!! * The forum server crashes because of being overloaded and shuts down.

On Talk Classical & MIMF, we have a 30 second rule ... maybe a silly rule, *but* it also applies to spam bots, who also cannot post more than ONE single post every 30 seconds. They (the bots) give up trying and go somewhere else.

This forum averages 30 new registrations per day --- 75% of those are spammers, who, knowing about the 30 second rule, the spam bots were filling up every field within their profile with links and messages promoting this or that. Of course when we see that, we remove all that info and instantly permanently ban the user ... but it's time consuming and certain profile fields can only be edited by an administrator.

The staff eliminates tons of spam* before you even see it* every day. We know who the spammers are ... there is a 'blacklist' of spammers on another site which forum admins/mods have access to, and if that username or any part of their registration info is on that blacklist, they are banned straightaway without any warning.

All banned users, and their associated registration information, remain within the forum database ... so if they try to re-register, they won't be able to with that old username.

So, all said and done, we realize having to wait those 30 seconds is aggravating, but at least you might have a better appreciation of why that 30 second rule is in place.


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## emiellucifuge

Krummhorn, im interested - is this a full time job?


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## Krummhorn

emiellucifuge said:


> Krummhorn, im interested - is this a full time job?


On some days, it sure feels like it 

As an administrator, I average 5 hours per day here and on our sister forum, MIMF. Most of my 'online' time here is spent working in the background, although I do keep abreast of the foreground areas of the forum, too.

However, the forum staff is an all volunteer team, and, I must say, extremely dedicated to the forums daily operations, as well as our 'boss', Frederik Magle.

One "perk" to being a staff member is that the 30 second rule doesn't apply to us :lol:. 
When chasing a spammer, we must be able to outrun the cretins .

The other "perk" is watching these spammers desperately trying to edit their profiles, which of course, they can't. :devil::lol:


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## Delicious Manager

Krummhorn said:


> So, all said and done, we realize having to wait those 30 seconds is aggravating, but at least you might have a better appreciation of why that 30 second rule is in place.


Thanks for explaining. My 30-second waits will now seem all the more worthwhile :tiphat:


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## emiellucifuge

Well thank you for doing it Krummhorn!


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## Rasa

I never get this spam. I am dissapoint and feeling left out.


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## CageFan

Thank you for working hard to mantain this forum from spammers. My highest regard to the "boss" and all staffs. ^Salute^


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## Huilunsoittaja

Krummhorn said:


> The other "perk" is watching these spammers desperately trying to edit their profiles, which of course, they can't. :devil::lol:


Haha!

By the way, how long will the access lockdown last, perhaps?


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## Krummhorn

Huilunsoittaja said:


> . . . By the way, how long will the access lockdown last,
> perhaps?


I'm hoping short term ... it's a PhP code change that requires the expertise of the site owner ... that's one of the few "powers" I don't (and don't want) have.


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## bassClef

Profile full of spam but no posts? What would be the point in that? I mean why do they bother?


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## Delicious Manager

bassClef said:


> Profile full of spam but no posts? What would be the point in that? I mean why do they bother?


They have no lives!


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## Rasa

Doesn't the registration process here include some form of CAPTCHA?


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## Krummhorn

bassClef said:


> Profile full of spam but no posts? What would be the point in that? I mean why do they bother?


Since the spammer knows without question that their spam post(s) will be deleted followed by a swift and permanent ban, they began to ply their advertisement urls and other information within the profiles themselves. Those could show up during a Google search of the username.



Rasa said:


> Doesn't the registration process here include some form of CAPTCHA?


Yes, registering requires completing the CAPTCHA ... and that requires a human entry. 
Once the registration process is completed (by the human) the username has all the same privileges as any other on the forum. There is no blinking neon sign "I'm A Spammer" when a known spammer creates a new registration.

The good news is that there is a hack* that can be installed that would check all new registrations against a master list of known spammers. We are looking into that as another possibility to the solution.

*Hacks are "good things" in forum software terminology ... in the informal sense, a hack is used to write or refine computer programs in a skillful manner.


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## myaskovsky2002

CAPTCHA...a good idea indeed

Martin


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## Chi_townPhilly

Rasa said:


> I never get this spam.


And that's the way we like it!


Huilunsoittaja said:


> ... how long will this access lockdown last...?


I think the point bears making that members (even *new* members) need not feel 'locked out.' We understand it's an extra step- but if there are any tweaks to be made to a member's profile page, one can simply contact a staffer (best by Private Message) and we'll get going on it.


bassClef said:


> Profile full of spam but no posts? What would be the point in that?


Very much parallel to *Rasa*'s observation above, it really pleases us that most of our spammers have been forced to go into 'stealth' mode, and deliver their spam payload out-of-sight of the membership.:trp: However, this spam really isn't intended for the membership- it's intended to be read by web-crawlers and search-engine bots. Even though it's no immediate burden to the membership, the reality is- just like (in 'NASCAR-speak') cautions beget cautions, spam begets spam- independent of where and how it's delivered. So... we got to "go and cut the lawn" on a regular basis. That's all right- there are compensatory pleasures to 'keeping up a good yard." [It's also fun to steamroll vermin every now-and-then.:lol:] There have been no shortage of targets lately...  but we'll get 'em.:devil:


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## Ukko

Hey, you are keeping the emoticons exercised, CTP, the only one that doesn't work for me is the trumpet. But emoticon selection is an art, and you are doing OK.


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## Rasa

Krummhorn said:


> Yes, registering requires completing the CAPTCHA ... and that requires a human entry.
> Once the registration process is completed (by the human) the username has all the same privileges as any other on the forum. There is no blinking neon sign "I'm A Spammer" when a known spammer creates a new registration.


It would seem you're up against a captchasolver factory....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/technology/26captcha.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=technology


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## jurianbai

i hope it never happen. I was once in the forum where their entire site been compromised by hacker. the owner need to buy a new domain after that. I hope the admin overhere have 'plan B or plan C' if really something like that happen.

on the profile spamming why make it like this: only member with 50 (or more) posts will allowed to create hyperlink in their profile. Closing access to personal profile for long period may be scared away new member.


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## Krummhorn

jurianbai said:


> . . . I hope the admin overhere have 'plan B or plan C' if really something like that happen.


Already in place ... but the original setup is pretty much bullet-proof already, the details of which I cannot disclose ... but it was impressive to learn about.


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## Herkku

I really would like to have PMs enabled. I have an old member newly accepted as a friend, but he cannot send me PMs and we really need to communicate! Can you help?


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## Camilla

This explains why I couldn't edit my profile!


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## Krummhorn

Camilla said:


> This explains why I couldn't edit my profile!


If there is a certain field that you (or anyone else here) needs to be changed, please let us know via PM and we can do those for you.

Kh


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## emiellucifuge

Hi Krummhorn, just recently decided it would be about time to upload a profile picture having forgotten about this thing. Any idea how long it will last?


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## Yoshi

I also wanted to change my avatar a few days ago...
And recently I decided that I wanted to change my sig and profile but I keep forgetting about this. 
Will this last any longer?


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## Huilunsoittaja

Thank you for allowing editing again!

Except, are there new rules? like signature can't be longer than 50 characters?


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## emiellucifuge

Huilunsoittaja: Why have you replaced Prokofiev with Borodin?


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## Ukko

emiellucifuge said:


> Huilunsoittaja: Why have you replaced Prokofiev with Borodin?


Perhaps Huilunsoittaja has 'gone back to basics'?

:devil:


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## Huilunsoittaja

emiellucifuge said:


> Huilunsoittaja: Why have you replaced Prokofiev with Borodin?


HAHAHAHA!

No, it's Glazunov. Yeah, I've changed who I am gonna advocate just for now. Everyone knows I'm an Enfante Terrible fanatic, so I'm gonna show everyone the other side to my taste, the contrasting, sane, conservative side.


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## gr8gunz

Will I be able to edit my profile any time soon????

tnx


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## Krummhorn

gr8gunz said:


> Will I be able to edit my profile any time soon????
> 
> tnx


We are hoping so - trying to get a definitive answer on when the forum software will get upgraded. When that happens, access to profiles will be enabled again.

If there is something that you need added, like your homepage, signature and such, send me a PM with that info and I'll see what I can do.


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## Joey Jo Jo Jr Shabadoo

Was wondering why your response to my email informing you of my inability to edit my profile was so cryptic. anyway, thanks for the explanation.


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## Frederik Magle

A new and much improved spam guard has been installed, which should hopefully cut down spam significantly. Hence, all members can now edit their own profiles again.


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## sospiro

Frederik Magle said:


> A new and much improved spam guard has been installed, which should hopefully cut down spam significantly. Hence, all members can now edit their own profiles again.


Love the Spam-O-Matic :devil:


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## emiellucifuge

Huilunsoittaja said:


> HAHAHAHA!
> 
> No, it's Glazunov. Yeah, I've changed who I am gonna advocate just for now. Everyone knows I'm an Enfante Terrible fanatic, so I'm gonna show everyone the other side to my taste, the contrasting, sane, conservative side.

















Which is which?
I cant tell....


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