Spam and a new Message Board

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   To all:

	The problem with the message board spam is NOT that I do not care. I do. The problem is the spammer have computer automated systems that automatically generate spam faster than I can delete it. And to make matters worse, with the current message board I have to not only delete each entry one by one but I have to enter passwords, etc. 

	

	The spam is a real problem. The only solution is for me to purchase an entire new message board that is not "open source" like this one. Open source boards allow for modifications (specific software) to be written to suit the individual. For example, the Lost and Found portion of the website is something I wrote which allows uses to post items. 

	

	Changing to a new board system would mean losing all the current threads, everybody would have to re-register as new users (about 7000 people) and we would lose the Lost and Found portion of the message board. There just isn't a system to migrate all the data to a new message board.

	

	However, will all the complaints about spam, maybe it is time to fix this problem and move to a new board. Perhaps it is worth it in the long run.

	

	I appreciate all the emails and the concern. I want this message board to be useful to the slugging community and to help everyone. I guess the spammers are going to win this round but I will purchase a new message board.

	

	Sincerely,

	David

	Webmaster

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Admin Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 25 Jul 2001 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote Admin Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Spam and a new Message Board Posted: 06 Apr 2007 at 9:49am
	To all: The problem with the message board spam is NOT that I do not care. I do. The problem is the spammer have computer automated systems that automatically generate spam faster than I can delete it. And to make matters worse, with the current message board I have to not only delete each entry one by one but I have to enter passwords, etc. The spam is a real problem. The only solution is for me to purchase an entire new message board that is not "open source" like this one. Open source boards allow for modifications (specific software) to be written to suit the individual. For example, the Lost and Found portion of the website is something I wrote which allows uses to post items. Changing to a new board system would mean losing all the current threads, everybody would have to re-register as new users (about 7000 people) and we would lose the Lost and Found portion of the message board. There just isn't a system to migrate all the data to a new message board. However, will all the complaints about spam, maybe it is time to fix this problem and move to a new board. Perhaps it is worth it in the long run. I appreciate all the emails and the concern. I want this message board to be useful to the slugging community and to help everyone. I guess the spammers are going to win this round but I will purchase a new message board. Sincerely, David Webmaster

MDC Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 04 Dec 2002 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote MDC Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 06 Apr 2007 at 10:53pm
	Sorry to hear that. Could you lock all the threads and keep this as an archive?

Admin Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 25 Jul 2001 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote Admin Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 07 Apr 2007 at 2:27pm
	Not a bad idea. I may be able to "disable" all future postings and leave it for reference. The other option I have is to use "moderators" to delete spam and continue to use the same message board. This does prevent the spam, but it helps in having it deleted. I may go this route so we can keep the Lost and Found and other areas connected to this message board. Thanks, David

n/a Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 17 Dec 2001 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote n/a Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 09 Apr 2007 at 1:03pm
	Admin, you've got a tough job and, as usual, lots of critics. Thanks for your efforts. I'm willing to participate as a moderator wherever I'm needed.

fryed_1 Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 27 Jul 2005 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote fryed_1 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 09 May 2007 at 12:34am
	I haven't posted here in about 2yrs, but saw this sticky and thought you might be interested in this... I converted a snitz forum over to phpbb about 4 months ago with about 3k users and 300k posts or so without TOO much hassle. There was some user data lost such as birthdays and other add-on crap, but the bulk remained along with all the posts and users. If you use encrypted passwords with this version of Snitz, they will not transfer over to phpbb (or wouldn't for me). I simply modified the template for the login page for a period of time to display a message "If you are experiencing password trouble because of the new format, please use the Recover my Password link to have your password sent to you by email.", and that worked for nearly everyone. This was a snitz access db platform converted over to mysql phpbb. Here's a couple of the links I used to get it done. Took about a day total (actually took about 30mins total, but a few days of testing to ensure everything was working as it should), to do the complete conversion and have everything working as it was. All in all, it wasn't a terribly difficult process. I had the advantage of having a test box to setup the snitz forum, with full database backup, and doing the conversion a couple times prior to attempting the real thing. After the third conversion with no problems I did it on the live server and everything worked pretty much flawlessly. I even wrote a few php scripts to automate the switchover rather than typing the conversion scripts into the web browser. http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=111471&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 http://snitz2phpbb.sourceforge.net/ Feel free to contact me through my email listed in my profile (should be able to get that as admin right?) if you have any other questions about it. With phpbb, you have a MUCH more extensive mod resource. I've setup a few of them on the side for different businesses and groups and have been able to mostly eliminate 99% of the automated spam from the script kiddies by making simple modifications to some of the existing mods (basically change table value names so the scripts don't recognize it when trying to automatically register accounts). Plus there are quite a few useful mods that don't allow users to post html links (removes the html code completely or simply makes the link non-clickable)