New Members Registration Policy

[Janus]

An abrupt move, but obviously neccessary for the time being- all new members to EoD must pass COPPA activation process and must pend staff approval before being able to have full registered member permissions. This means that those pending activation can simply browse, read, and reply to threads- they may not create threads, use URLs, or otherwise access most permissions.

I understand this is hardly a welcoming treat to a new forum so I do beg the patience and understand of those from here on out signing up, but we have had excessive problems with spambots flooding the forums and it's important for everyone's sake to have another barrier in place until we can finally oust them once and for all.

[Sandman]

Janus has returned! And he has driven away the Spambots!

[Kadaj]

All hail the return of Janus! Rejoice, for he hath brought swift vengence upon the spamers!

[Traya]

He is risen! The messiah is back!

[Janus]

Oh teh noes!!!1111


http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/5907/114539ejliwqz8.jpg

[Sandman]

About the spambot thing, it's only one forum, and with a few clever fixes(like renaming the off topic forum to something else, which has been suggested repeatedly and thoroughly ignored) we shouldn't need administrative permission to register

[Janus]

True, but a halt in the flood will give me time to clean up the mess and make the neccessary changes. As it is now, I've spent the last twenty minutes deleting spam accounts that were created in the 24 hour period before I enacted the COPPA registration.

[Janus]

And with the pruning. We started at nearly 400+ accounts when I logged on over an hour and a half ago. Now...

Members: 56, Active Members: 29

The Great Flood has passed.

In addition, I've changed the names of the more spam-able sections to prevent some bot usage. I'll lift the COPPA registration once I have a firmer grip on the situation and some better anti spam measures in place. In the meantime, I have the next three days off so I'm sure I can monitor the incoming new accounts.

[Sandman]

And with the pruning. We started at nearly 400+ accounts when I logged on over an hour and a half ago. Now...



The Great Flood has passed.

In addition, I've changed the names of the more spam-able sections to prevent some bot usage. I'll lift the COPPA registration once I have a firmer grip on the situation and some better anti spam measures in place. In the meantime, I have the next three days off so I'm sure I can monitor the incoming new accounts.

ok cool. there are also a few tips from another site in the "help with spambots thread' I made

[Lord Darkstar]

Nice to have you back Janus, thanks for stopping the flood (now we are Antedilivian Order x2) :)

And wow, I never realized that it had got that bad if we had over 400 accounts, and are now down to 56 without the bots. How did you find them all? Anyway, thanks and I'm glad you're back

[Janus]

No problem!

Basically, all the spambots have the same timezone settings, in some Pacific country area that I have never ever ever heard of.

Plus I did a mass prune of those who hadn't posted but were registered within the last few months.

[Illustrious]

I lifted the Activation requirements.

I installed a nospam question in the registration requirements, so no more spambots.