Why can I not see my post when entered?

[wavysteps]

This subject was discussed a couple of months ago, when the forum was first opened, however, we have gained more members and the question has arisen once again.

Since we are an open forum, unfortunately it is open to a group of people that I will politely caller "spammers". Their main objective is to post pornographic material and supply us with an endless quantity of various, dubious medicines.

To combat this influx of junk and not subject our true users of this forum to this trash, Mike Diamond instituted screening of all new posts and it has worked well, for we have had only a few objectionable posts slip by.

To date we are approaching the 1100 mark of objectionable posts that have been deleted by either Mike or myself. The vast majority are from Russia and the Far East. We will continue to do this, for both of us believe that this forum and those who post legitimately are worthy of our time spent.

I thought that all of you should be aware of why your posts are not seen the moment that they are put on. Maybe in the future, when the "spammers" see how senseless it is to post on this forum, we will be able to post without screening, however, that prospect is iffy at best.

Thank you for being patient.

BJ Neff

[BIM Mania]

A sound and prudent policy.

Thanks

[Speedy]

Isn't there a way to have it on auto ok for the members who you know are OK?
I always thought there was a way with this software to block the posts for some people and have it ok'ed for others.

Something about this forum must flash for spammers--I'm a Mod on a large coin forum and we never get that much spam. In fact I haven't seem a spam post on there for at least 1 month and we don't have the posts blocked like ya'll do here.
I don't know what to suggest.....

[wavysteps]

Mike Diamond, with help from Pat, seems to have fixed the problem. For the last few days, we have not seen the hint of spam. Maybe with this trend, Mike will be able to lift the regulations a bit and allow unmonitored posting.

BJ Neff

[Pat]

I just emailed Mike some more info today.. as well..

[BIM Mania]

Nice--

Releasing the regulating valve, or turning the valve CCW will surely encourage those who are identified as experts.

Rather, it will cause contribution without inhibitions, or bring out the spirit of those who are NOT being oppressed without warrant.

[Pat]

VB and Fighting Spam Bots. There are several methods to this that I will describe.

#1 If you disable the email verification system and the image validation features, you will be welcoming every spambot in the world. So you switch to a moderated post, like has been here.

The implementation while very safe against spambots forces moderators to work extra hard and flusters users. But, when you determine they are not a spambot or spammer. You can move them to a custom usergroup that doesn't require post moderation, as that setting is a usergroup based setting.

#2 Same as number one, but you moderate all new users. They register and are not active until the administrator validates their account. This was be done in several ways via a phone call or email to the user. Typically with this method the admin creates two extra profile fields and ticks them as private fields (Only Moderators and Administrators can view Private Fields), the fields are usually:

• Real Name (First and Last Name)
• Phone # (Your Phone Number as xxx-xxx-xxxx)

#3 The most popular solution by far is to enable email validation, the account is not active until the user confirms their email address. However, spambots can usually get by this.

#4 The best standard protection is #3 plus Image Verification. In Vbulleting you have the option of using ImageMagick or GD. GD by default is compiled into the most basic PHP installation, ImageMagick is normally not, but it's best to use ImageMagick because it provides other functions as well including resizing thumbnails to proper size, avatar resizing and a few other things.

But back to the verification, with ImageMagick you can select if you want it so display the image verification with the following options:

• Random Fonts
• Random Slants
• Random Text Size
• Random Colors

Of course if everything is enabled it's sometimes hard for the self-respecting good user to register if their monitor isn't very clear or good.

#5 The Ultimate in Protection is usually #3 and #4 with an additional registration question customized via the template and plugin system. You've seen this before if you register for a forum or website and they ask you a question such as "An orange is what color" You have to type in orange or the software won't register you. A spambot can't read a question like that. Sometimes you'll see "4 + 4 + 5 * 10 = What?" The answer there is 130. (I think)

So what's new for VB, well starting with Vbulletin 3.7 (Currently in Beta) while introducing so many new features to even list it offers this custom question now without modifications or php knowledge as well as integrates the "ReCaptcha" system, which is so darn cool and it's the ultimate protection. If the user can't make out the letters, hit the audio icon and it reads it to you. Hence even the Blind can register now. Lincolncent.net is running 3.7 beta 3 currently, and once it's been released it's well worth it for all forums to upgrade.

So that's basically the spam bot situation. On a side note, the ONE downside to email verification is that gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc.. will sometimes regard the validation email as spam and the user may never see it, because they delete spam automatically or never check their spam folder. This presents a problem, of course with custom headers can be solved. Since once you register VB remembers who you are and while in a pending status you have a unique usergroup the software can display a notice on reminding you to activate your account and how as well as the Spam Email warning reminding users to check their email..

Disclaimer: Sent from my blackberry, so spelling may be off..

[Pat]

Mike Diamond, with help from Pat, seems to have fixed the problem. For the last few days, we have not seen the hint of spam. Maybe with this trend, Mike will be able to lift the regulations a bit and allow unmonitored posting.

BJ Neff

I still have a simple solution. Create a new usergroup and move the trusted people to it.. They won't have to wait for moderation.