Spam

[Jenny]

My goodness...I came on-line today and there were about 10 spam messages...none that applied to embroidery that I know of...maybe later today I can come back to check to see if there is any helpful information...Happy Valentine's Day and until next time...

Jenny
Westbrook Wonders

[levelbest]

I'm turning off registrations again.

Honestly, I can't stay on top of it. It's like a hornets nest of spammers have suddenly come to life.

I probably will be looking to move the boards to some new software this week.

[levelbest]

Let me also say - free email providers are about the worst thing ever to happen to the internet. When an email isn't associated with an ISP, there is simply no accountability.

I'd turn off gmail registrations if I could - 95% of the spammers come from that domain or a .ru address. I realize it's convenient - but that convenience leads to the service being used to spam the world thru forums.

It's extremely frustrating.

[Jenny]

Last week I contacted AOL about one spam sender. The e-mail address always starts with contact@ and then it's always a different address after that so if you block one the next one comes through. I have had to block all mail except for people I know and this isn't good with my business e-mail address either and I am so tired of the spam. This contact@ is still going into my spam but because I have block on it a lot of my mail that isn't spam is getting thrown in the spam folder too. I have to check it to get some of my mail that isn't spam. Thanks and I know this isn't about embroidery either but everyone suffers from Spam and it is so maddening.

Jenny
Westbrook Wonders

[Steve]

John, is authenicating the email address required before posting? This will help slow down (not stop) the amount of spam that comes through. If you currently have authenication turned on, send me the logs. I have a contact at gmail abuse that will kill the account

[levelbest]

Steve:

Yes, it is - the problem is, a lot of third world countries are now paying people pennies an hour to register as a live person and spam boards endlessly. It's CRAZY but true. I honestly think that google just doesn't care. If I showed you the volume of spam we get as a little board via gmail accounts that have been verified, you'd be HORRIFIED. I had 293 registrations that passed email verification in less than 7 days while I had manual approval on. Only ONE of those was a legitimate embroidery professional.

Even Captcha and Answering Questions doesn't slow it down much. On my other forums, we run all that - 2 questions that change all the time, Captcha, email verification and we still get 10-12 users a day registering as spam accounts.

Log wise, you'd just have to look at the pending registrations - there isn't really a log output right now - and given the fact that I blew them all away, it wouldn't do much good right now.

Bottom line is, I need to update this board to vBulletin. I've done about all I can here and it's time to move on.

If you use the site regulary, find the information valuable and can spare $5 or $10 to contribute to upgrade some of the backend server software, we'd appreciate it.

There is a DONATION link on the homepage that lets you put in whatever you want.

I'll be buying the software one way or the other at the end of this week if not before. I don't like the idea of turning off registrations - and think people will be upset they have to manually email to get added to the discussion boards.

Anyway, thanks for the offer Steve - it's really time for me to upgrade. The user experience will be much better anyway.

[Posh LittleThings]

I LOve this site so I am going to go ahead and donate right now, please people, help out!
On another note, since everyone ignored my embroidery question and are putting your eyes in here, can someone tell me where or who does appliqued patches? thanks,
Jazmin

[Posh LittleThings]

done!

[Judy]

I can't get by without this site. THANKS!

[levelbest]

Thanks - Much appreciated!

[Jenny]

Ditto Judy and I wasn't fussing at the board just that spam seems to be everywhere. Not only on this board but in all e-mails for every address I have.

Jenny
Westbrook Wonders

[dsldan]

Were & how do we donate? I'll be glad to help. I have learned so much from this site.
Thanks Dan

[levelbest]

Home page, right side, big donate button [img]smile.gif[/img]

http://www.amayausers.com

[Jenny]

Thanks and I just made my donation to help keep this board up and running and to continue to help us. It was easy to make the donation and I thank everyone who runs or helps run this board.

Jenny
Westbrook Wonders

[Dorothy Compton]

John,

Maybe you ought to make it a cost to join (i.e. able to post). No professional would miss out for a $1 or $2 (life-time registration) but it would certainly stop the spammers!

Going to the website now.....

Dorothy