Membership Rules Relaxed

[Chris Perkins]

Many of you will remember that a short while ago spam posts on the forum became beyond a joke. To eliviate this I switched to a mode whereby no guests could post anything and any new members were manually checked by me before their accounts were finally validated.

This worked very well because spam bots usually have obvious email addresses originating in countries where most of the world's spam comes from, or often they have ellicit or advertising names in their usernames.

Now that the forum software has been updated, every prospective new member has to enter a code which appears as a jumbled image. I've tested this, and it appears only real people have joined the forum since the software update! The spam bots are not clever enough to read the jumbled code. I have therefore turned off the manual validation and now, as soon as any real person joins the forum, they can start posting right away! It also saves me checking through the scores of spambot registrants to find real people.

[custard1966]

Many of you will remember that a short while ago spam posts on the forum became beyond a joke. To eliviate this I switched to a mode whereby no guests could post anything and any new members were manually checked by me before their accounts were finally validated.

This worked very well because spam bots usually have obvious email addresses originating in countries where most of the world's spam comes from, or often they have ellicit or advertising names in their usernames.

Now that the forum software has been updated, every prospective new member has to enter a code which appears as a jumbled image. I've tested this, and it appears only real people have joined the forum since the software update! The spam bots are not clever enough to read the jumbled code. I have therefore turned off the manual validation and now, as soon as any real person joins the forum, they can start posting right away! It also saves me checking through the scores of spambot registrants to find real people.

Hi Chris,

Be aware that spammers are starting to get around captchas - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7067962.stm

[Chris Perkins]

I'll keep an eye on things and if any ever do get through I'll switch back to manaul validation!

[Colin G.]

I'll keep an eye on things and if any ever do get through I'll switch back to manaul validation!

I have enough trouble reading the wavy letters anyway, they would probably end up with more incorrect attempts than correct ones if I had a go!!!

[scottishmoney]

Well at least I can join the forum - maybe, I do have a mail.ru email though