Hi folks

 

After the recent increase in spam posts from guest accounts we've had to disable guest posting in all of the news forums.

 

I know there are a lot of friendly lurkers out there who comment on the news articles from time to time, so please feel free to sign up for an account if you'd like to make comments in future - it's quick, easy, relatively painless and we don't pass on your details to anyone else.

 

If anyone has any queries, either PM me or if you're not a member get in touch via our contact page.

 

Thank you

Is it bots? Any chance of incorporating a new test to stop them if so?

 

Got an ETA for the restoration of guest posting, otherwise? We have some great lurkers.

Humour would be our contact box suddenly flooding with (more) spam.

The only way I'll be able to incorporate something is with a forum upgrade and some of the new ideas I've been talking about in the staff forum.

 

For the rest of you that can't see that forum, there are plans afoot to resolve this in a upgrade in the next month or two and I'm intending to reinstate guest posting then.

 

Don't worry - this is intended as a temporary measure for now, however the content of some of those spam posts was pretty bad and we've taken this measure so as to not subject anyone to them for any length of time if possible, plus save staff members' time in cleaning them up.

 

More announcements will follow on future site developments soon, but for now I'm going to keep them under my hat

 

Humour would be our contact box suddenly flooding with (more) spam.

 

At least it's out of public view and Google's not going to add it to their searches, which is the point of most spam posts with links in them - it increases the ranking of the site the links point to in case anyone else was wondering.

We haven't forgotten about you, lurkers! We love you very much! Let me kiss you on both cheeks!

We haven't forgotten about you, lurkers! We love you very much! Let me kiss you on both cheeks!

That is FACE cheeks. We wouldn't want to scare them off too quickly.

Hey, it's me that lowers the tone around here. I need this, don't jokeblock me again.

Working (read: annoying Pete) on getting this reinstated!

If you can't wait though, please do feel free to create an account. We're not affiliated with anyone, we'd love see you around more and we'll only pass your details on to the highest quality back-alley organ harvesters.

 

I jest, of course.

 

...

 

About the last bit specifically.

Yes, they no longer prefer to be known as 'organ harvesters' because the mental imagery is too bleak. The prefer 'organ requisitioners'.

Guest posting is now enabled again on all forums for a trial period. As long as we don't get too much in the way of spam it can stay on

 

I'm working on allowing guest posting through the forms on the main site and will update you when that's ready.

Lurkers, I have avenged thee!

I think that guest posting should be disabled again - seen plenty of spam recently.

Yeah, noticed it myself. Has actually anybody other than bots used the guest posting since enabling it?

I've seen a small handful of spam - not exactly a torrent - but it depends on how many other staff members have been deleting stuff?

Ive seen a small number during my peak hours(which is, what, you guy's downtime?), but a very small amount.