Spamming the site.

[Bob Hunkins]

Recently there's been some people signing up and posting items that have nothing to do with the Day Sailer or even sailing. These posts will be deleted and the users deleted from the forum. If necessary, I will take further steps and ban the IP addresses associated with these posts and contact the owners of those IPs, advising that they are hosting spammers.

Additionally, any signatures that appear to have links to commercial adverting will also result in the user being banned.

This is to serve notice that if you want to advertise for items that are not related to sailing, the Day Sailer, you are not welcome here.

If you want to advertise items related to your sailing business, I recommend you contact the class association secretary and take out an advertisement in our newsletter. The rates are reasonable.

Private individuals wanting to sell used equipment or boats, are as always, welcome to post in a civil fashion.

[GreenLake]

Anybody found (or suspected of) spamming the site will be removed.

A typical "attack" will have a newly registered user, with an IP address in Pakistan (or India) who posts a seemingly inoffensive message (but one that's so generic, it would have fit any forum) with a prominent link to some external, commercial (or adult) website.

If your first post, signature or profile contains a web-link to something neither personal, not sailing related, but commercial, Bob and I will consider that suggestive of an intent to spam.

If the first (only) message(s) you post are "generic" ("good work", "need pictures") or worse, are ripped off verbatim from other boat sites, we take that suspicion as confirmed.

If finally, you are using an ISP with an IP address in Pakistan ... you get the picture - don't give your location as "USA" in that case, or we won't hesitate to flush that registration.

If you are new here, tell us a bit about yourself, or your boat, or your interest in daysailers in your first post, and you won't be mistaken for a spammer. Oh, and not having a link to an adult website will help

[GreenLake]

There's been a spamming attack and Bob is working on it - looks like we are getting great new look & feel as a side effect. Better that than 500 posts hawking cheap Russian watches.

[Alan]

GreenLake,

I had noticed that a couple of spams got through in the last week or so, and then someone (you, I imagine) dispatched them with impressive speed.

The site has been remarkably spam-free. It makes the whole thing much more enjoyable, and I appreciate the effort. It must be tedious and time-consuming to watch out for that stuff.

Alan

[GreenLake]

Alan,

Bob's the one who did the heavy lifting. Reinstalling an upgraded version of the software is no small task, and I'm surprised he got it done so quickly. It was absolutely necessary because the spam this time came faster than it could be removed manually. One of the benefits is that the new version should offer better security features.

Keeping up after the occasional spam isn't a lot of effort. I do visit the site regularly anyway, because I'm keenly interested in what is being discussed here. Spending a few minutes on cleaning up spam, splitting or moving threads, and a few other "light" touches of moderation isn't hard work at all.

[GreenLake]

Anybody whose first post here is content free (for example "nice post") and whose second post contains a link - any link - to an external site will be banned and all posts deleted. It's a common link spammer's script, and I won't be giving you the benefit of the doubt if you follow this pattern.

Anybody who writes or asks something about sailing or the DaySailer in their first post that's genuine - welcome to the forum, we like new people here, we really do. But we can't stand spammers!

[seandwyer]

Wow--has there been another attack or some sort of spam activity?

[Alan]

Yeah, somebody posted "nice post" on one thread and a post completely unrelated to sailing on another one.

It's nice to have a moderator who's on top of this stuff so we don't have to put up with spam.

[seandwyer]

I agree--I saw the "nice post" last night on a thread concerning how different guys stow their boom for road trips. I didn't catch that it was spam and had planned to post a picture of how I carry mine today!

At least I got to read the thread which was interesting and one I don't think I have seen before.

[GreenLake]

Sean, you could go spelunking on your own.

use "site:daysailer.org" as part of your google search (w/o the quotes) and you can use the power of a real search engine to look for treasures on this site. (The forum's built-in search is comparatively limited, particularly if you want to search for something like "boom vang" and not find all mentions of boom as well...)

[seandwyer]

Greenlake,

When I said that at least I got to read an interesting article, I meant that I probably wouldn't have ever chosen to read that one on my own. Only because it was put in front of me did I read it. I look through articles on the site all the time.

But then I tried your idea for searching and it was fantastic! That's the thing about this site--you look for some key word and EVERYTHING under the sun comes back as a result. I'm putting your search tip in the drawer of my desk so I don't forget the syntax.

Thanks!

[GreenLake]

Got a flood of fake user registrations and some proceeded to post stuff in Russian and other languages full of links. Removed some slimy posts, anybody who registered in the last three days and banned the IP and mail addresses they used. If that affected any legitimate users, please get word to the DSA webmaster and I'll see what I can do.

[GreenLake]

Rinse and repeat.

[GreenLake]

I've had to change the security question on registration. The one we use to prevent spambots. Can someone test-drive the new questions for me? (You may need to pretend you are registering for a forum account for the first time, perhaps by using a browser that's doesn't have cookies/login information from previous visits).

Any issues: please send a PM and do not copy questions or answers here.

[GreenLake]

Got a flood of fake user registrations and some proceeded to post stuff in Russian and other languages full of links. Removed some slimy posts, anybody who registered in the last three days and banned the IP and mail addresses they used. If that affected any legitimate users, please get word to the DSA webmaster and I'll see what I can do.

Rinse and repeat. Currently mass-deleting bogus registrations daily - if some non-bogus one got caught up in that, my apologies.