Oldversion Forum Upgraded! - and no more Spam :)

[Travis Dane]

Hello everyone

As you may have noticed, the forum has now been upgraded to the latest version of vbulletin. Also we are going to be making some changes to combat spam and once again make this forum a tidy place, unlike my bedroom :p

[OldVersion Admin]

Signature's for registered users have also been disabled for now until further notice :)

[Constance]

Well, for what is about spam, looks like "they" are back :/

[locustfurnace]

I believe the only way to solve the spamming is to use a captcha image. Most boards are using those today.
Then again, not sure how much this forum is used these days, except for spammers.

[Goslow]

... not sure how much this forum is used these days, except for spammers.Why would anyone want to? Much like going for a swim in polluted river or sea, you have to be very keen!! Saw this guy the other day he was talking about dissecting a whale & he pulled 28 shopping bags out of its gut. In some States whales are regarded as toxic waste due to the fact they store chemicals & toxins in their blubber, after swimming in polluted seas this can reach significant concentrations. Saw some whales the other day, fantastic! I think they were humpbacks but I'm no expert, they are an impressively big animal!! What a pity they & we have to swim in some of that S**T

[Pete]

I keep checking in to see if the admins have done anything about the spammers, only to be greeted by multiple pages of new spam every day. This is the first time, in weeks, that I found legitimate posts buried in the mudpile.... (I recently used this forum as an example of what happens if you let it get out of control).

Have the owner and administrators given up?

[locustfurnace]

I believe they have.
I've only recently been cleaning up the spam. It has been years since I posted here, but thought I would give it some help, starting to think it's fruitless.

[Pete]

It's a shame.
vBulletin is fairly sophisticated forum software.
There are lots of modifications and add-ons available that will stop over 90% of the bots.
Or
New members could be screened before being permitted to post. Most of these bots will have IP addresses that resolve to non-english speaking countries. The majority will be in the stopforumspam.com database.

[the gaffer]

Hello people,im back again,not been on much for a while,had major problems with the joints and the shoulders have been horrendous,hopefully will be able to help clean the spam a little,it does get disheartening though,good to see you here locustfurnace hope you are keeping well mate.

[The Dude]

I stopped coming to thie site when Alex "upgraded" to VB4...

This s/w is garbage and not nearly as good as the older VB stuff.... Its slower in loading,etc......... (Smilies look like crap,etc)

I was all ready to try and help with the spam but then VB4 was put on here! (I think this is a colourless piece of trash;horrible compared to what was here before!!)

http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20090418125817/http://forum.oldversion.com/

Look at that,MUCH NICER........ I am on 1 VBB site still running VB2.3 and they are excellent!! (Speed,etc)


There was NO REASON to put this on here when what was here WAS MUCH BETTER..


No reason to upgrade ...... (NEWER IS NOT BETTER)

Quite sad that people have lost that good sense they once had of WHATS GOOD!

[Pete]

I didn't follow any of the links, but one of the SPAM messages today purports to be offering illegal content (kiddy porn)...

Whether or not it's true, it could have been...
It could easily have posted an image that would have taken a lot of explaining.

IMHO: If the administrator/owner isn't going to police the content, for his own good, he should shut down the forum.

BTW: I could be under control.....When I spoke to a VB forum owner who has things under control about this site, his reply was....
If he's running a legitimate copy of vBulletin, he should have access to all of the mods I have access to. As you can see, we don't have a major problem with bots like we used to unless of course you're deleting them all before I see them. In the past six months (aprox), we've had less than 10 bots that required deletion/banning by hand.

[Pauldog]

I couldn't post a new thread anywhere, either. I gues it's only spammers who can post new ones.

I was trying to request that the site start offering Mathematica Player 7 (from wolfram.com), because the new free player doesn't support Windows 2000 any more.

[LRI41]

I believe they have.
I've only recently been cleaning up the spam. It has been years since I posted here, but thought I would give it some help, starting to think it's fruitless.

Its a real shame what has happened to this Forum over the last 6 to 9 months or so.
I rarely come to visit because there is nothing to read of any interest.

[OldVersion Admin]

Alex here --

Yeah the spam has indeed gotten out of control. We're trying to figure out what the best way to address it. The plugins we tried installing have not worked.

The Dude -- sorry that's how you feel about vB4. We actually attempted the upgrade because I thought perhaps the new version wouldn't be susceptible to the spam bots. Ironic, isn't it?

We've been focusing on giving our site a makeover and making it easier for people to contribute software. Now you may be able to directly contribute software to http://www.oldversion.com through registering so this may almost eliminate a need for our forums. Of course, we've not given up..just been focusing all our energies into launching our blog and site revamp.

Sorry I haven't kept in touch with you guys through the forums. This is as frustrating for me as it is for you!

[Pete]

Alex
It's obvious that you don't have the Admin/moderator manpower to handle this volume of spambots by hand....

I moderate at another VB board that had a spambot problem almost this bad...
The owner installed mods/plugins that worked. The few that get past the mods are easily screened by hand (most are listed in the database at stopforumspam.com).
We've only had to ban 12 by hand since last October.... only two of them actually posted before they were banned.

You could try contacting the owner of http://www.njflyfishing.com/ (username "dcabarle"), and see if he'll tell you which anti-spam mods he installed.

[OldVersion Admin]

Thanks Pete! I actually installed a mod yesterday that screens the users against stopforumspam database yesterday. We'll see how things go from hereonin, but I didn't have to delete any posts yet since I've installed the mod -- seems to be working well! (hopefully that doesn't jinx it :\)

[Pete]

Two days.... no spam ... So far, it seems to be working....
BUT
No other posts either.
It may take some doing to get the "regulars" back.

[OldVersion Admin]

Yup, spam has been drastically reduced -- a couple posts over the last two days that weren't too difficult to moderate. It's good to have the_gaffer back. Hopefully, some of the others will follow soon :).

Thanks for sticking around, Pete.