The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

This is getting way over the top.
Them spambots are destroying the site and something needs to be done.

Ideas?

As is it would be easier on the mods and admin to make registration a manual process.

It is a right pain in the you know what.
The mods and admin team are working on a fix at the moment, so just hang tight and see what they come up with.

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You can never have too many guitars

Yeah, it is a serious problem alright, and as Don says, the Mod's are trying to work out a pan to deal with it.
Security is our number one issue, and that needs to be addressed quickly before the site gets trashed completely and all is lost.

The GG attempts to cover a huge range of Mats related products, but the Forums and the adjacent informational site could also stand a visual and informational overhaul as well. Some of you know that I am responsible for both the WestoneGuitars.net web site and the Westone Forums so please holler if I can lend a hand. I'd be happy to help out.

EDIT
I just had a look at the revised registration page.
Fellas, I don't think that is going to work for long.
Why?
1) Bots are programmed to look for and activate a default button as a first attempt. In this case your default sends you to the next step in the registration, not to a dead end!
2) Both button choices end up at the same registration page, so it doesn't matter which one is chosen!
3) Again, the default "Agree to terms" button takes you to the next registration step. A Bot will simply 'choose' it.
4) The Capcha graphic is better than the original one but it these will still be eventually defeated by the OCR capability of the Bot. Bots can be programmed to defeat any registration technology. Capcha is no longer unbreakable.

SUGGESTIONS:

• You need to replace all this with a simple Q&A challenge, one that can only be answered by a human.
  The idea is to make the question something like,
  Type the uppercase letters found in the following: f rgYUhzD45
  answer: YUD
  
• Simply send your prospective members a code that they have to enter in for the answer.
  
• Make the answer something that only a human could figure out about your site etc.
  e.g. What is the third letter of the fourth word in the second paragraph of the site description...
  
• Employ a post approval of the first post. That is fairly common around the net and it shouldn't run off too many people that really want to be a member of the board. Once you or a moderator have approved their first post, they will be removed from the newly registered users group and will be able to post without approval etc.

If someone is not willing to spend just a few extra seconds to sign up you probably don't want them as a member anyway.

Many thanks to the Admin and Mods for hanging in there!

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

Like I said above...

I just finished posting my 'edit' before I left home for the shop.
When I arrived 45 minutes later and logged on with my laptop, there it was! More SPAM. It took even less time than I thought it would.

...here we go again.

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

Security updates done!

_________________
All vantage-branded guitars were lower-priced instruments aimed at the beginner-to-intermediate market. It has no interest to collectors and very little demand among players! (www.allexperts.com)

Yeah, looks like we got a bit carried away with the lock down there for awhile. No SPAM, but nobody could register either!
I hope all is well now?

Nice to see a freshening up of the interface too. One comment however...the notification icons appear to have been mixed up on the Board Index listing. Everything is showing as "unread posts" (orange). They should only turn orange when there is an actual new posting in the forum.

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

They're showing correctly for me.

Nope. They're showing all Orange.

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com

Did the same thing to me.
Quick fix suggested by John, is to go to the right hand side of the page above last post section and click on the mark as read button.
Will reset the whole show for you and you will be back to normal as far as read posts go.
Cheers

_________________
You can never have too many guitars

Ah, that did it.
Cheers lads.

_________________
"A little song, a little dance. A little seltzer down your pants." -Chuckles the Clown
Guitars: https://legend.barryeames.com
Music/Pix/Videos: https://getback.barryeames.com