Server issues

[AnimalToyForum]

Sorry for the recent downtime.

[sbell]

How odd! I'll see if I can work out what's happening...

Whaaa?

Who are you?

[brontodocus]

How odd! I'll see if I can work out what's happening...

Whaaa?

Who are you?

A nonsense spammer who is gone now. Thanks again for the heads up, Sean!

[sbell]

How odd! I'll see if I can work out what's happening...

Whaaa?

Who are you?

A nonsense spammer who is gone now. Thanks again for the heads up, Sean!

I kind of figured...but it was more amusing than the usual reporting.

[AnimalToyForum]

Sorry for the recent downtime. 

[AnimalToyForum]

Here's a weird one. Today I think I identified the cause (or a cause, at least) for the Internal Server Error message we sometimes receive when posting or modifying posts. For some reason, this seems to happen when a post includes two or more consecutive dashes ("-"). I can't explain it!

Sometimes I include a series of dashes to divide a post up. After much trial and error I worked out that removing the dashes stops the error occurring.

So, if you get that error message, check your post for consecutive dashes and try again.

[AnimalToyForum]

The forum and blog may go down for an hour or two later today while some server maintenance is being performed.

[AnimalToyForum]

The forum and blog may go down for an hour or two later today while some server maintenance is being performed.

This maintenance didn't take place last Friday so it has been rescheduled for today. So, apologies for any inconvenience if the sites go down for a while later.

[NSD Bashe]

probably obvious I guess but there's like 37 new spam posts that should be deleted

[AnimalToyForum]

probably obvious I guess but there's like 37 new spam posts that should be deleted

Thanks, deleted them. As the forum becomes more popular I'll have to be more vigilant for spam bots. Whatever you do, don't respond or interact with spam posts, it's what they want and makes things worse @EpicRaptorMan I talking to you 

I will have to update the security questions now, because once one bot has cracked the code, others will follow.

By the way, since this isn't a server issue and the spam has been deleted, I will delete this post and the last one soon (giving you time to read it). Better to keep discussions about spam behind the scenes. Please flag spam for moderation but don't post about it publicly or reply to spam posts. Thanks!

[EpicRaptorMan]

Unsure if it was a typical bot or just an individual; likely the former, but still odd how they were listing tuitions from colleges in alphabetical order — and they stopped soon after I called them out; at which point they already made 30+ threads or so.

I advise either creating a moderation queue to where members can not only report but temporarily hide offensive/spam posts until they can be reviewed/approved by the moderation team.
Or implement a PPD-Limit for newbies. Perhaps a 10PPD limit for their first week? My only concern with the latter option is that this forum already is quite slow and shouldn't try limiting fresh blood joining the forum.

[AnimalToyForum]

Unsure if it was a typical bot or just an individual; likely the former, but still odd how they were listing tuitions from colleges in alphabetical order — and they stopped soon after I called them out; at which point they already made 30+ threads or so.

Almost certainly a bot, and it stopping is probably a coincidence.

I advise either creating a moderation queue to where members can not only report but temporarily hide offensive/spam posts until they can be reviewed/approved by the moderation team.

That would be open to abuse (bots or unscrupulous members flagging actual posts), and would just generally great more work for mods.

Or implement a PPD-Limit for newbies. Perhaps a 10PPD limit for their first week? My only concern with the latter option is that this forum already is quite slow and shouldn't try limiting fresh blood joining the forum.

I have a setting for "Time required between posts from the same IP" but that would apply to everyone at all times. And like you say, we don't want to put off newbies or make it difficult for them to participate.

So, the system as is will suffice. If you see spam, report it, and I'm more likely to take immediate action. 

[EpicRaptorMan]

@animaltoyforum Well how does the current report function work? Isn't it already exclusive to member accounts?

I've seen the features I mentioned implemented on other forms and it worked well. This place is relatively slow and I feel that most people here are mature enough to not abuse the system. Feature should only be reserved for posts that would warrant a profile ban.

But as you said the current security is probably sufficient as I haven't seen hardly any issues like this occur before.

[AnimalToyForum]

Which forums, I'm curious to take a look and see what we can apply here.