jsburger
Are new forum members being accepted or is something broken? Ever since admin fixed the SPAM problem the number of new forum members has dropped due to the BOTS not being able to get in. However, we were still getting some new members. The newest member listed on the home page (Veronakhy) has been there for about a month. What say you moderators?
RFGuy
Definitely has been quieter lately on the forum, so you might have a point on new forum members and whether they can gain access or not...
reible
A moderator has to look at new members and view what they posted. If it is spam then they are removed along with the post and they are banned which includes their IP address. So that is why you are not seeing the spam and not seeing the new members who try to spam, they never make it to the forum.
I will say the activity has slowed way down. I think there was a list of easy sites to spam and we were on it. Now with the new measures it is whole new ball game for them. Yes they can get in by posting an acceptable posting but when they start the spam they are soon gone.
Ed
jsburger
I totally understand all that. We used to have a few new legitimate/contributing new members after the change. Now there hasn't been one in over a month. Just wondering.
chapmanruss
Generally speaking, new members have been new owners of Shopsmith tools looking for information or help on tools. Something I have noticed lately in my area is very few Shopsmith tools for sale therefor fewer new to Shopsmith owners. I don't know if that is happening elsewhere or if it has an effect on potential new members to the forum. Hopefully new Shopsmith owners are not going just to other groups and not joining this one.
For those of you looking here as guests, and I see 99 of you right now, if you are new or even not-so-new to Shopsmith tools and are considering joining I encourage you to join, ask questions and share information.
MODERATOR
It has been 5 days since the last attempt was made by a scammer to join this forum. Totally due to the filtering of all new members. Any new member need not fear of being banned etc.
algale
MODERATOR wrote
It has been 5 days since the last attempt was made by a scammer to join this forum. Totally due to the filtering of all new members. Any new member need not fear of being banned etc.
Thank you, Moderator! I am enjoying the new spam-free format!!
JPG
algale wrote
MODERATOR wrote
It has been 5 days since the last attempt was made by a scammer to join this forum. Totally due to the filtering of all new members. Any new member need not fear of being banned etc.
Thank you, Moderator! I am enjoying the new spam-free format!!
I think
ADMIN is the one to thank !
DavidMcM
As one of the newer members, it took a couple of months and multiple calls to Shopsmith to get my account activated. I started in December and finaly got the account activated in February. I almost quit trying. The issue was I could create the account but never received the activation email. Maybe I was just unlucky but possibly others have had the same issue.
db5
Did you look in your Spam - Junk folder? More often than not that's where these activation emails end up.
DavidMcM
Yes, I checked the SPAM folder multiple times.
@jsburger pointed out in the original post that he had noticed a decrease in new forum members. I was just poinitng out this might be a reason why if other new members are running into the same problem I had with not receiving the activation email. Again, maybe I am the only one that has had this problem.
jsburger
There is some kind of problem with legit users getting in.
bainin posted this the Table Saw Power Feed thread:
" "...saw this thread and tried to join and respond, but he has been unable to do, due to some kind of registration error (I have no idea)."
Seems like there is a new user delay or issue of some sort."
This is what I said when I started this thread. The same new user has been listed on the main page for about 6 weeks.THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SPAM BEING ELIMINATED. That has been totally eliminated thanks to the Moderators. Something is broken.
reible
The members list tells me that the last new member was Feb 11. So you may be right that seems like a long time since we saw a new member. We had 6 new members that day, 6 the day before that, 8 the day before that, 7 the day before that, and 11 the day before that. So it sure looks odd that nothing new since.
I have sent admin a message.
Ed
jsburger
reible wrote
The members list tells me that the last new member was Feb 11. So you may be right that seems like a long time since we saw a new member. We had 6 new members that day, 6 the day before that, 8 the day before that, 7 the day before that, and 11 the day before that. So it sure looks odd that nothing new since.
I have sent admin a message.
Ed
Thank you.
reible
Just got a new (member) but spammer which of course is now gone...... Admin also got back to me so we did indeed have a problem and it is fixed. So if you know of anyone who tried to get in and failed ask them to try again.
Ed
beeg
4 new members on 03/15/21, so far 2 have been banned.
reible
Just finished banning 6 more spammers.... flood gate is open again.
Ed
JPG
Well it was peaceful while it lasted .
RFGuy
As a reminder, when the forum SW was updated last fall there was a change to how new forum members would be processed (see previous post by ADMIN). Does this now mean that the moderators have to review and approve of new forum member posts before they are made active members? Just wondering if somehow those new forum member posts are falling through the cracks somehow or if there has been a change to the forum:
https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?p=276853#p276853
admin wrote
More administrative updates:
Disabled memberlist.php entry script to debug database memory leak.
Purged approximagely 30,000 users who had created accounts but never logged in or posted anything (at least 99.9+% spam)
It is possible that some legitimate users may have been caught in this dragnet. If so, I sincerely apologize. Any legitimate users who were deleted are welcome to re-create your account.
Due to the excessive amount of spam we were receiving, I had to change the way new user signups are handled. From now on, new users' first posts will be held or moderation. Once they have an approved post, thy will go in the general users group.
We will still have to prune spammers who get past the CAPTCHA (now changed to reCAPTCHA), but their posts will not be visible to the public, and it should be easier to manage.
Also thank you to the new moderators who volunteered.
P.S. I just wanted to offer thanks to ADMIN and the MODERATORS who keep this forum functioning and SPAM free/SPAM lite.
reible
New members posts are screened by moderators before anyone else sees them. If they are OKed then you will see them appear here on the forum. If not they are removed along with the user name and the IP address.
This has been working and sometime around the 11th of Feb. the CAPTCHA function stopped working. So no new members since that has to work to make it to the next step in the process. Moderators don't see that part of the process, it is only after they post that we see them.
It is also possible for people to sign up but not post for sometime. I believe they appear as members for those of us who can see the list. However long they wait we still see the post before they show up here. We have had some small amount of spam appearing after the issue with new members because they had signed up before the software issue but just had not posted yet.
Ed
