Forum Lockdown

[S Allen]

Due to the amount of spammers and hackers I have locked the forum down to registered users only. I also made it impossible for non-registered users to view the membership list, group lists and profiles. Something I should have done long ago. Lots of robots crawling all over us lately. Thanks.

Steve

[spl310]

Locking out the robots is good, but I don't know about making the forums visible only to members. I have talked to a couple of folks already that read the forum but have not joined, and they cannot even view it. If you look at the introductions, a lot of folks are lurkers for a while before they decide to join. Locking down the forums from view is locking them out...

Maybe have a question that must be answered as a part of the registration process - the bots can't handle that...

[Dave]

Well now, that explains the sudden rush of actual legitimate new accounts! All those lurkers are finally signing up.

Steve, I think Sid makes a good point. Not just from a robot befuddling standpoint but also to make our job of spotting spammers easier. It's a tough call when someone signs up for an account and gives absolutely no info at all. If we can add some required fields it might give us more to go off of.

[S Allen]

You make a good point Sid. I can unlock the view topics so any one can view the threads. I will also look into adding a code for registration that a bot will be unable to find. I will have to move the code around every week or so to keep 'em guesssing. I am not trying to cut anyone off but the bot/spammer/hackers are a real pain in the -ss.

Steve

[S Allen]

Okay, I have opened some of the forum back open to the public but not all of it.

Steve