Guests not allowed??

[Theis]

I was gonna logging onto SimV on the schools computer, and I've noticed that guests aren't allowed to watch the forum, and have to registrer to become a member before watching the forum..
What's the idea with this??
Guests should be allowed to watch at least some parts of the forums, like a taste of how it is..
I never register to a forum I can't see, and I think this new thing would prevent new members from joining.

You wouldn't buy a new car, without seeing it first, would you?

Cheers Theis

[Theis]

Here's the message I get..

[Mitch.]

I got that message and had to log in after it, I was going to log in anywayz!

[eno]

Pete has had to disable guest viewing, temporarily.
Over the last couple of weeks we have had an increasing number of guests from the same ISP ........ Pete has been trying to get to the bottom of it, as I don't think 300+ Yahoo users are browsing Simv at the same time.

[X-EAL]

Pete has had to disable guest viewing, temporarily.
Over the last couple of weeks we have had an increasing number of guests from the same ISP ........ Pete has been trying to get to the bottom of it, as I don't think 300+ Yahoo users are browsing Simv at the same time.

I am an administrator of another board. Tell Pete that it's a new Yahoo crawler.  The crawler itself won't hurt him, the only thing he will notice is a jump in the number of spammers he has to filter out. Before the Yahoo crawler, I only had to deny 3 or 4 a day. Now I am denying 20 a day.
He may find this useful: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/s ... rp-03.html

[JSpahn]

Personally I think the new registration process should involve an actual human edited approval process. Most spam is automated believe it or not and a few direct flight sim questions during the registration process would weed them out. Of course this would increase the work load a bunch.

[JBaymore]

Personally I think the new registration process should involve an actual human edited approval process. Most spam is automated believe it or not and a few direct flight sim questions during the registration process would weed them out. Of course this would increase the work load a bunch.

But we typically don't have problems with general spamming.  Our current "issue" is the recurrent porn spammer ......... and we are pretty darn sure it is a "he" and not an "it".  So in this case....... the person would just sign up "normally".

best,

.......................john

[X-EAL]

Personally I think the new registration process should involve an actual human edited approval process. Most spam is automated believe it or not and a few direct flight sim questions during the registration process would weed them out. Of course this would increase the work load a bunch.

Some spam is automated but most are not. In my case, the registration process does involve a human to the extent that we require a "validation" through an email address. Problem is that there are tons of email domains specifically set up for spammers to make money. If we filter those, some are now using mainstream email domains like hotmail or yahoo mail. There's ways to check them but it's time consumming.

Search bots have value if you're running a board that supports a product. You want people to "google" a product and have your site pop up near the top. The problem is the spammers, you don't want them because nothing will hurt a business faster than having your site display a porn link...especially if it's on your work computer.

But John is right, there is a recurrent porn spammer who is using dynamic Ip's to spam boards. I think Simviation is doing the right thing by banning guests. I know I'm thinking about it.

[JSpahn]

I agree banning guests is a great way to deter pests, but my guess is they are losing out on some potential referrers by blocking the forum.

[legoalex2000]

automation through email validation can be easily done, but validation through a captcha can't be done automatically.

*captcha - that picture with the funky letters and colors

I know boards where you need a captcha to login, and then to post as well.

ramos

[pete]

Guests are sometimes temporarily blocked due to suspicious activity. Guests are now allowed back in as normal. There are a lot of people who browse for up to years before joining the forums & I agree it is best to allow guests.  

Too much security is not a good thing as it goes against the open & friendly policy we try to maintain here -- so it just means keeping a little more on our toes.

Feedback & reports very appreciated.  ;)

Edit: Ramprat -- Thanks for the info!