thats worrying
- Thread starter sunnybob
- Start date
Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:
Mr T
Established Member
Me no understand!
Chris
Chris
galleywood
Established Member
+1
Myfordman
AKA 9Fingers
What is more worrying is that the sign up procedure and vetting of first few posts from a new member is not working effectively.
From comments by some mods elsewhere on the forum we have an absentee Site Admin and whilst that is the case UKW remains vulnerable to spammers as some of us saw this morning before our mods came in and swept up.
As a moderator on another site, I can sympathise greatly if our mods are not supported by their Admin. All they can do is reactive maintenance and not make changes/improvements. A fairly unrewarding experience.
Thanks guys
From comments by some mods elsewhere on the forum we have an absentee Site Admin and whilst that is the case UKW remains vulnerable to spammers as some of us saw this morning before our mods came in and swept up.
As a moderator on another site, I can sympathise greatly if our mods are not supported by their Admin. All they can do is reactive maintenance and not make changes/improvements. A fairly unrewarding experience.
Thanks guys
MattRoberts
Established Member
It was a real person signing up to a public forum, nothing you can do to stop them from spamming rubbish other than delete the pending posts and ban them after the fact, which is what the mods have done
Myfordman
AKA 9Fingers
Sorry Matt you are mis informed there.
Our forum software will block spam until the new user has established their woodworking credentials.
True if they then go 'bad' then manual intervention by mods is needed.
But so far it seems to keep the idiots out.
Our forum software will block spam until the new user has established their woodworking credentials.
True if they then go 'bad' then manual intervention by mods is needed.
But so far it seems to keep the idiots out.
Rob B
Established Member
sunnybob":1tjddbb2 said:
True, he did more posts in 30 minutes than I've done a month
MattRoberts
Established Member
I'm afraid you might be the misinformed one here
The forum software has rules to block spam and to prevent people posting stuff for sale without meeting certain criteria etc.
These rules only go so far, and as long as someone meets them they can still spam
The forum software has rules to block spam and to prevent people posting stuff for sale without meeting certain criteria etc.
These rules only go so far, and as long as someone meets them they can still spam
Myfordman
AKA 9Fingers
MattRoberts":3m3kokjz said:I'm afraid you might be the misinformed one here
The forum software has rules to block spam and to prevent people posting stuff for sale without meeting certain criteria etc.
These rules only go so far, and as long as someone meets them they can still spam
Yes those are the rules here but the forum I help run uses the same software as this one but we manage the potential spammers differently and what happened here this morning would not happen.
RogerS
Established Member
sunnybob":10r71xxw said:
Different forum. Myfordman is referring to TheWoodHaven2.
Unless the Moderators also have administrative privileges, the UKW will continue to drift in spam shark infested waters. I've seen this happen on other discussion boards, and eventually the spam attacks become so overwhelming, the options are to abandon the website, restore from a known good backup (assuming any exist), or shut down the site. Unless the site has a full-time staff, volunteer Moderators can do only so much.
The current version of UKW software is at least ten years out of date, as is TheWoodHaven2, which is an eternity in spamming methods and techniques. There could be many reasons for this, such as apathy from the owner, an end of life server and OS that won't run newer versions of supporting software, or a combination of the two plus many more.
When I was an owner/administrator for a photography website using vBulletin, I discovered one morning that there were over 2,500 new member accounts, each with at least a dozen posts with spam links in every forum and sub-forum. The accounts were easy to spot because each had a gibberish email address and the attack method to create the account bypassed the email notification requirement.
I had to shut the site down, restore the database from the previous day's backup because it was too much work to cull the spam, and find out how the spammers were able to launch such an assault on the website. Once the vulnerability was discovered and fixed, I turned the site back on. I installed a new recommended addon that was effective at the attacks and logged each successful block. There were still over 2,500 attempts to create spam accounts each day as well as over 200 direct attacks to the server, mostly from China and Russia. Fortunately, the mod_security rules were effective at blocking the server attacks. I eventually leased a new server and changed the discussion board software to XenForo, which is more stable and inherently more secure than vBulletin or phpBB.
The Moderators have my utmost respect and I hope you have the access required to install security patches or perform other maintenance to keep UKW alive.
The current version of UKW software is at least ten years out of date, as is TheWoodHaven2, which is an eternity in spamming methods and techniques. There could be many reasons for this, such as apathy from the owner, an end of life server and OS that won't run newer versions of supporting software, or a combination of the two plus many more.
When I was an owner/administrator for a photography website using vBulletin, I discovered one morning that there were over 2,500 new member accounts, each with at least a dozen posts with spam links in every forum and sub-forum. The accounts were easy to spot because each had a gibberish email address and the attack method to create the account bypassed the email notification requirement.
I had to shut the site down, restore the database from the previous day's backup because it was too much work to cull the spam, and find out how the spammers were able to launch such an assault on the website. Once the vulnerability was discovered and fixed, I turned the site back on. I installed a new recommended addon that was effective at the attacks and logged each successful block. There were still over 2,500 attempts to create spam accounts each day as well as over 200 direct attacks to the server, mostly from China and Russia. Fortunately, the mod_security rules were effective at blocking the server attacks. I eventually leased a new server and changed the discussion board software to XenForo, which is more stable and inherently more secure than vBulletin or phpBB.
The Moderators have my utmost respect and I hope you have the access required to install security patches or perform other maintenance to keep UKW alive.
DrDerrick
Established Member
Hi, you guys seem to be in an inner circle in the forum, so maybe you can tell me why a member need 20 contributions before he can offer something for sale. Surely, it's relatively easy to tell the difference between a legitimate private seller and a commercial seller - if that's what you're trying to do. I'm thinking of closing down my workshop (not commercial) and selling my machines, tools, etc. but find I have to look for topics about which I can say something that may be useful before I can let other members know. Just wondering why the rule is there.
Myfordman
AKA 9Fingers
Looking back, there was no explicit for sale section but items for sale came up scattered through the other forums.
A mixture of protracted discussion of prices, informal leapfrogging of prices, self promotion of ebay and suspicion that a minority were virtually running a used tool business free of charge on the back of the forum led to (IIRC) a ban on for sales.
Pressure from members eventually led to the position we have now with a rule set aimed at preventing the above problems and to stop people joining just to sell.
The mods here are very sensitive about the rules being questioned and to be fair there are only a few volunteers to run what is a large forum. Continual defending of the rule book is time consuming.
My polite suggestion would be not to rock the boat and sell your wares elsewhere such as ebay where you could possibly raise more. Everyone here will have a good idea of the market price and the ill informed ebay bidder could well pay more.
If by chance you have a JET 16-32 drum sander, then feel free to PM me! The for sale rules are much less onerous on The Woodhaven2 if you wanted to give that a try but the membership is much smaller. WoodworkUK also smaller has a greater proportion of trade woodworkers.
HTH
A mixture of protracted discussion of prices, informal leapfrogging of prices, self promotion of ebay and suspicion that a minority were virtually running a used tool business free of charge on the back of the forum led to (IIRC) a ban on for sales.
Pressure from members eventually led to the position we have now with a rule set aimed at preventing the above problems and to stop people joining just to sell.
The mods here are very sensitive about the rules being questioned and to be fair there are only a few volunteers to run what is a large forum. Continual defending of the rule book is time consuming.
My polite suggestion would be not to rock the boat and sell your wares elsewhere such as ebay where you could possibly raise more. Everyone here will have a good idea of the market price and the ill informed ebay bidder could well pay more.
If by chance you have a JET 16-32 drum sander, then feel free to PM me! The for sale rules are much less onerous on The Woodhaven2 if you wanted to give that a try but the membership is much smaller. WoodworkUK also smaller has a greater proportion of trade woodworkers.
HTH
20 seems a lot to me (not that I have any say in any of this).
I would think a time limit would be more successful, allowing only one post in the for sale folder every 12 hours.
Certainly no spammer would bother with that.
I would think a time limit would be more successful, allowing only one post in the for sale folder every 12 hours.
Certainly no spammer would bother with that.
I will answer from my perspective as a current and former forum owner/administrator. The photography forum I owned originally had a policy of 25 posts before being able to create threads or post in the For Sale forum. The main draw to the forum was the membership and the content, not the platform for buying and selling. There were other boards better suited to that, such as Fred Miranda.
After one nasty transaction with a new 25-post member who was selling what turned out to be defective equipment, the For Sale forum was closed while the original owner and Moderators decided what to do. After a few months, the For Sale forum was opened, but access to even view the forum required a minimum of 300 meaningful posts and membership for at least 180 days. Members below these thresholds, who enjoyed access to the For Sale forum, were now cut off. Some were upset and left, while the rest sucked it up and continued being productive members. After I assumed ownership of the website, I kept the access rules in place because the majority of the membership wanted it.
I'm sure that even now under new ownership the new members are still asking why they can't see the For Sale forum just to browse or buy. The answer is always the same...there is a valid reason and there are no exceptions. If you came to buy or sell, please go elsewhere. If you came to contribute and be part of a community, have fun and access will come soon enough.
I don't know of any discussion boards that have unrestricted access to the For Sale forum. I also don't know how anyone could possibly tell the character of a person based on a few posts, but there should be some limiting factor to prevent the first post being something for sale.
After one nasty transaction with a new 25-post member who was selling what turned out to be defective equipment, the For Sale forum was closed while the original owner and Moderators decided what to do. After a few months, the For Sale forum was opened, but access to even view the forum required a minimum of 300 meaningful posts and membership for at least 180 days. Members below these thresholds, who enjoyed access to the For Sale forum, were now cut off. Some were upset and left, while the rest sucked it up and continued being productive members. After I assumed ownership of the website, I kept the access rules in place because the majority of the membership wanted it.
I'm sure that even now under new ownership the new members are still asking why they can't see the For Sale forum just to browse or buy. The answer is always the same...there is a valid reason and there are no exceptions. If you came to buy or sell, please go elsewhere. If you came to contribute and be part of a community, have fun and access will come soon enough.
I don't know of any discussion boards that have unrestricted access to the For Sale forum. I also don't know how anyone could possibly tell the character of a person based on a few posts, but there should be some limiting factor to prevent the first post being something for sale.
