Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Something odd with Forum Search results:
If you type a search term in the “Search the forums …” bar, you first get a short list of relevant posts with the option of clicking for “More Results”.
Clicking on “More Results” does bring additional posts to the screen, but they are arranged like items in the store. Very strange! It has been this way for a while but I don’t know how long.
OK, I will look into this, should be fairly easy to fix.
Now that you’ve whitelisted our email address, you should receive notifications. Let me know if you don’t.
Stormdancer & Setsunawolf,
I checked on all of the ads that you guys mentioned above, and they were in fact renewed. I’m not sure why you got that “invalid domain” message, but the ads are active in the classfieds right now. There is a new update available for our classifieds software. I will install it soon, and hopefully that will take care of the issue. In the meantime, if this happens again, check your listings to see for sure whether they were renewed or not, and let me know if you need help.
I’ve set the classifieds to bypass the captcha for users who are logged in. So you should be able to renew ads now. If you log in and still have trouble renewing, please let me know. Also I can renew your ad(s) for you in the short run, until the issue is resolved.
Yes, Kayla is back. Every time I delete her account, “she” just creates a new one from a different IP address. Sorry folks—I’m trying!
Sorry for the inconvenience, StormDancer. I’m not sure whey the verification would expire. Google recently released a new version of reCaptcha (version 3) that uses a different kind of technology, but I’ve read that there have been various issues with it, so for now I am trying version 2, which has been around for a while.
This version asks you to check a checkbox (“I’m not a robot.”), and it makes a determination (based on various factors) behind the scenes about the likelihood that you are an actual human. Depending on how that goes, you may be asked to identify images like traffic lights or bridges. So sometimes you have to do the image puzzle, and sometimes not——that’s normal.
Obviously we’ve been targeted by an increasing number of spammers lately, so I’m trying different things to combat the problem. I know that it’s a hassle for everyone, and I appreciate your patience! If anyone else has trouble with the login page, please post here or email me. Thanks.
Thanks everyone for the heads up. That account has been flagged and the IP blocked. It never ends! Maybe there’s a general spike in spam activity lately for some reason. I used to get the occasional spam call on my cell phone, but have gotten lots of them in the last week.
This new spammer has been flagged, so will not be able to access the site again. Also, after the last spammer created a new account as soon as I flagged their first one, I installed some code that allows me to see what IP address they are logging in from. The IP address of this newest spammer has now been blocked, which should prevent them from creating another account on our site.
Apart from blocking the IPs of known spammers, the options for preventing future spam attacks are few and imperfect. I can take measures to make creating an account more difficult, but that will make it more difficult for legitimate users as well.
Also, I could install software that adds a “friends” feature to everyone’s account. You could then send friend requests to other users (very similar to facebook), and then people could only send PMs to their “friends.” Apparently this has (mostly) worked for some other websites that have experienced the same spam issue that we’ve been having. But it would be a bit of hassle for everyone to send and accept friend requests to/from everyone they want to message. Plus, it wouldn’t prevent a spammer from sending out hundreds of friend requests, but at least those don’t generate email notifications.
Everyone,
Just want to let you know that I will be working on this issue over the weekend. The spammers seem to be getting more frequent and more persistent, so I will look at different ways of combatting them. Spam prevention is always a balancing act–how to keep the spammers at bay, while keeping the site easy to use for legitimate community members. I will update you all on new spam prevention measures as soon as possible. Rest assured that your personal info (including your email address) is not at risk. The email you receive is from our site, notifying you that you have a new PM; it is not a message from the spammer directly. Sorry for the inconvenience, and stay tuned for the solution.
(I’m posting this on the other relevant threads as well)
Everyone,
Just want to let you know that I will be working on this issue over the weekend. The spammers seem to be getting more frequent and more persistent, so I will look at different ways of combatting them. Spam prevention is always a balancing act–how to keep the spammers at bay, while keeping the site easy to use for legitimate community members. I will update you all on new spam prevention measures as soon as possible. Rest assured that your personal info (including your email address) is not at risk. The email you receive is from our site, notifying you that you have a new PM; it is not a message from the spammer directly. Sorry for the inconvenience, and stay tuned for the solution.
(I’m posting this on the other relevant threads as well)
I just received a spam message from Kayla Noyes. Subject was “hello”
Yes, this user has been flagged as a spammer. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Unless it’s just me… it seems that photos posted later this afternoon can’t be loaded. It spins around awhile then displays an ‘X’. Photos posted this morning and earlier are showing. I have looked on the Classifieds and in Forum posts.
Please ignore this it suddenly started working.
Thanks for letting us know. WP Engine, the company that hosts our website, has been having some performance issues the last few days, and they’ve been working to resolve them. Someone else reported that our site was down, but every time I’ve checked things have been working normally. So I suspect the image problem was related to this. Hopefully they have everything fixed now, but if anyone notices problems, please report them here so I can pass them along to WP Engine. Thanks!
