Page 2 of 3

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:39 pm
by 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.

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:33 pm
by 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.

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:48 pm
by 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

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 9:09 pm
by jsburger
reible wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 8:48 pm 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.

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2021 11:03 pm
by 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

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 1:39 am
by beeg
4 new members on 03/15/21, so far 2 have been banned.

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:52 am
by reible
Just finished banning 6 more spammers.... flood gate is open again.

Ed

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 8:42 am
by JPG
Well it was peaceful while it lasted .

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:26 am
by 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:

viewtopic.php?p=276853#p276853
admin wrote: Sat Nov 21, 2020 9:58 pm 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.

Re: New Forum Members

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 2:41 pm
by 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