[PAmedic]

between 2006 and 2132 all topics got wacked by a spammer, as many as 4 or 5 bad topics per thread.

I've deleted all I can, SLY is aware of it and will no doubt be fixing the rest; unfortunately he may have to take stronger measures regarding allowing guests to post.

sorry for the inconvienence.

Very irritating

[SuperJon]

I just got home, I'll take care of this section. I was looking at new posts and saw that it was all spam, wanting to make a SPAM joke. You ruined it. Jerk.

[thesportscritic]

and we just got hit again by spam betweem 9:20 and 9:25 this morning

[SuperJon]

Looks like no more guests will be allowed to post.

[A.G.]

Must be someone with raDfuRD connections.

As much as I like the fact that LEGIT guests can feel free to post, we can't have spam attacks.

[bigsmooth]

bunch of friggin pigs! i cleaned up my sections. this is ridiculous.

[Flamesfanva]

Death to SPAM!!

[SuperJon]

Medic's on. Go get em, kid.

[PAmedic]

getting ridiculous.

is a shame but restricting access is really the only option, IMHO

[A.G.]

Medic's just worried that the Spam total will exceed his own!

[SuperJon]

Funny but true.

[A.G.]

Uh oh! Just happened again--this time before our very eyes.

[Sly Fox]

Hey Guys ... I've been completely offline since early Thursday morning on a mini-vacation on the TexMex border. That explains my absence and my inability to fend off this attack.

First off, thanks to medic and the rrst of the mods who steppe dup to delete the trash.

Next order of business, I need everyone's input on whether they feel it is time to go members only (and I don't mean cheesy polyester jackets for you old hags). I have stated my disdain for having to go that route since launching this board. But if these spam attacks continue, I really see no other recourse.

We've had a ton of new folks joining the board formally or informally the past couple of weeks and I don't want to scare them off. I like the fact that newbies can come in and test the waters before joining the ranks of the registered. But its becoming obvious we may not be able to continue this practice.

So here it is ... please vote 'Yea' or 'Nay' and add an explanation if you please.

[SuperJon]

I think you have to go members only. The spammers are still going to come but it makes it harder for them to go members only.

[WinthropEagleFan]

I don't think requiring registration will scare off people that have an interest in posting on here. It's not like you're asking for money or anything. Spammers will still find ways to get through, but not to the extent that has been experienced here the last two days.

[Sly Fox]

While I was catching up on the board, we had another attack and I have set the entire board to registered members only at least for the time being.

[SuperJon]

I just hit reload and saw the attack.

[bigsmooth]

registration is the only way to go. period.

[Lemonade]

members only looks like it would be the best bet if you don't want to keep cleaning up spam attacks...

[PAmedic]

I added a poll for a quick way to visibly see where everyone stands.

For the record, I voted "yes" even though I don't really like the idea- I just don't see any other alternative at this point. Like WEF said, it won't deter people who really want to contribute- and cleaning SPAM out twice a day gets really old, really quick!

JMHO

[thesportscritic]

register is the way to go in my opinion.

[A.G.]

How many times, excluding the past 24-36 hours, has the board been attacked?

[Sly Fox]

We has some spambots hit us about 6 weeks ago and I had to close down several forums including the Chapel to registered members only at that time. I also added the vidual ID to the registration process and that seemed to stop that attack. I also was able to ban their IP addresses from our board. But these latest assaults were using scores of different IP addresses making making it nearly impossible to stop them.

The frustrating thing is these aren't spamming for profit ... they are simply nuisance spammers.

Oh well, at least for the time being I'm leaving the board closed to unregistered members. Perhaps sometime soon I'll quietly re-open to guests. But in the meantime I feel I have little recourse.

[phoenix]

Someone must have written a new spamming program or something. My blog has been getting hammered lately with comment spam, too.

Registered users is the way to go, I think. It will have the added benefit of reminding us to sign in when we try to post, so 'Guest' won't be starting all of our threads.