A big Thank You to the mods

[stam]

Just a few minutes ago I noticed every forum was spammed and it's all gone now. This is something I think we've automatically come to expect but is due to the diligent hard work of our Mods - just wanted to say a big 'Thank You' for your tireless efforts!

S.

[Klaus]

At your services, Sire!

[stam]

And by 'our Mods' Ι suspect that mostly means you Klaus
Thank you!

[richmond62]

Kisses to our mods.

[mwieder]

I missed the influx of spam but I add my ongoing thanks to the mods.
We need a moderator appreciation day. Or week. Or forever.

[SparkOut]

I missed the spam attack, but also express my appreciation.

[richmond62]

I suspect that huge spam attack might have come about because someone or something has noticed reduced traffic round these parts.

[stam]

But they will have noticed most excellent moderating now

[jacque]

All hail the mods! Which also includes Richard.

[SparkOut]

Big thanks again for clearing up another massive spam attack this morning

[stam]

Yeh I saw that spam attack - and yes another massive thanks to Klaus and Richard who tirelessly moderate the forums!

This is getting silly tho… it’s been so long ago I registered with the forum I can’t remember, but is there CATCHPA or similar functionality to stave off these bot runs?

Presumably the spammer accounts are permabanned? How about IP addresses?

And, perhaps more pertinently, would things be better if the forums migrated to a modern platform like Discourse?

Just a thought….

[heatherlaine]

Yes indeed, thank you Richard and Klaus for your efforts.

We do have captcha/are you a robot/answer these questions anti spammer measures on signup. Unfortunately there is a body of actual people who spend their lives signing up to forums in order to spam them. It's an industry, and a constant game of whackamole. Yes, we ban them, yes we delete them, yes we ban by IP address. There are always more IP addresses, more email addresses, more usernames.

We do keep the idea of migrating the forums to something more modern under review. It might happen one of these days. It's a vast body of information to migrate. Many people do not take kindly to change Others would view it positively.

We will just have to see.

Best Regards,

Heather

[FourthWorld]

Discourse is my new favorite forum package.

If migrating from PHPBB is easy then why not? But if it's at all difficult these forums could be maintained as an archive, with a fresh start on a new forum for new content.

[richmond62]

As far as I recall, the forums are already duplicated somewhere else.

[dunbarx]

Richmond.

Where?

Craig