PM'S

[Ruffsta]

i really really wish the pm buttons were back right now.. can't we get them turned back on for like a day atleast?

any idea of when they will be back? because this is just silly not having them

[adafruit]

hiya,

we're working on updating/upgrading the anti-spam parts of the forums. we'll be turning on PMs once we're done.

thanks for your patience.

-adafruit support

[Ruffsta]

this i already know, but WHEN is it estimated to be back?

a few days? a week? 2 weeks? a month? 6 months? a year? you guys could atleast give us an estimate..

[modeller]

I need to send a PM also - does it take over a month to add anti-spam mods to the forum code?

[adafruit]

I need to send a PM also - does it take over a month to add anti-spam mods to the forum code?

hiya,

thanks for the post, we're working on different parts of the forums - no ETA, we're not sure if we're going to turn PMs on.

thanks,
adafruit support, phil

[modeller]

I need to send a PM also - does it take over a month to add anti-spam mods to the forum code?

hiya,

thanks for the post, we're working on different parts of the forums - no ETA, we're not sure if we're going to turn PMs on.

thanks,
adafruit support, phil

Why can't you disable it for members with less that 5 or 10 posts? By that time you can ban a spammer. I'm very active as an Admin of several other forums and what you are doing is causing members to either post their email address in the open or use the option "enable members to email" - both of which are not advisable these days because letting out your email is just bad practice anymore. A spammer can create an account and harvest email addresses or just copy them from posts - I know for a fact that they are doing that on forums becasue I participate in support talks about it. I think you should re-consider what you are doing.

[modeller]

Sorry, I would have PMed an Admin with this but I can't ...

I know a great deal about forums because I've run them for years, perhaps I can lend some experience. First, yes there are "bots" that try to register but these days a lot of the spamming is done by human beings, you can call it a spammer farm. Low paid people register at forums and try to harvest personal information such as emails, or they pass the registration details of the account they made (name & password) along to the people who paid them. Given that people are registering, you cannot really stop this part of the process by CAPTCHA or any other question or test. They can answer and defeat any test you can put up. You have to be smarter than that.

What is this, phpBB? Don't they have a mod to stop the spammers by checking a known database of IPs? I run SMF and they have such mods available and you don't have to disable PMs. I've been a member of and run forums for many years and I've never seen one that had PMs disabled because of spammers. I've never been a member of a forum that had PMs disabled - period. Spammers don't want to PM anyone because it's too time-consuming. They want to get information into the forum so it can be displayed to a large amount of people and so it can possibly appear in search results by Google <-- mainly this.

PMs are hidden so they aren't going to waste time with that. I've very rarely, if ever really, gotten a PM from a spammer, they either want to post a message, make a signature with an ad link in it, or just register to harvest member's emails so as to make an email spam list for their masters. That's why enabling members to email you in your profile is a VERY bad idea. If anything should be disabled it should be the email option - NOT the PM option! Once your personal email gets out it's too late. That option shouldn't even be in forums any more - it's an anachronism. That's what PMs are for. You PM a member and then if you want to pass along your email to them after conversing with them you can.

You can also set the forum to admin approval and check the member names - they usually look obvious and/or "weird" like this -

gary127
Harry229

or like this -

odokarref
harumv0e
Coognotaunorawnub740
Robqg#ranxzdom[a..z]39
Crokoppoldedez
weardJeramnb169
goorgorogiazy
okleyezokay

^^^ Those are actual spammer names from a forum I help run.

"Real" new members who are serious don't use names like that. Just don't approve members who have obvious spam names.

I'm making this post in good faith and I hope that you will re-consider disabling PMs. If you want any more information I guess you can PM me but who knows if I can respond.

[adafruit]

thanks for the post and feedback.

thanks,
adafruit support

[dmpyron]

I need to send a PM also - does it take over a month to add anti-spam mods to the forum code?

Sadly, as a software developer and sysdamin, the answer is "if you're lucky". Spec'ing, evaluation, regression testing, rollout. Not fun. And I don't know how many software jocks Adafruit has, nor how many of them are available for this and experienced/capable enough to do it. Outsourcing is not cheap for something this small.

[modeller]

Sadly, as a software developer and sysdamin, the answer is "if you're lucky". Spec'ing, evaluation, regression testing, rollout. Not fun. And I don't know how many software jocks Adafruit has, nor how many of them are available for this and experienced/capable enough to do it. Outsourcing is not cheap for something this small.

No dmpyron, that's wrong. Many forum distributions such as SMF have mods available that are written by technically capable users that stop spam. It isn't necessary to pay for this work. I know because I have a forum and I know all about what's available - it's free.

This forum is being inundated with spam registrations as we speak.

Look at the profile of this person who just joined -

seekfailur

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=199349

It's a spammer. See what's in their profile? See the web link there?

Like I said - they want to post ad links in their profiles for Google to find. They aren't interested in PMs. I'm sitting here catching up on posts and I can see them joining up right and left. Look at the who's online list - the names. You can spot the spammer names easily because they are weird and strange combinations of letters. They need to install a spam prevention mod. If phpBB doesn't have one they can switch to SMF which already has these types of mods available for FREE. They have found this site and are jumping all over it.

P.S. For a cheap thrill look at the member names in the "Birthdays" listing at the bottom of the forum. Tell me what you see there ...