Archives for the 'Site' Category
And James Huff Giveth Back, Again
Huge thanks and props go out to James “MacManX” Huff this evening! More than once his knowledge has bailed me out of undesirable circumstances — tonight is no exception.
James was kind enough to point me in the direction of a helpful set of instructions for integrating reCAPTCHA with punBB forums in an attempt to neutralize the forum spambots that had me pulling out my hair.
I gave the instructions a go, and am pleased to say that the forums are back online and ready for real users to use as intended. Thanks to James, my faith in humanity has increased by 2.674% this evening, causing a net increase of 1.299% overall — which is a good thing. Thanks again, James!
The Lord Giveth, and Spammers Taketh Away
About two weeks ago I added what I thought was a good idea here at JMO — support forums. I figured it’d be a great way for users to help each other out, and an easy way to keep me from having to answer the same question more than once. Well, it would have worked had the Net not been the kind of place it’s become.
No more than a day after I put the punBB forum in place, I had 4 “new users” all from the -11HR GMT time zone (South Korea, Russia, Taiwan). One of them quickly made a post that contained disgustingly inappropriate content. If you were a reader subjected to that post, let me offer my sincere apologies. I in no way condoned what wound up in that post, and removed it as soon as I found it.
Due to that, I thought I’d give phpBB a spin in hopes that it was more secure from the spamming ilk. Almost as soon as it was in place, there was a new user who’s profile contained a spammy backlink to a diet supplement site. Totally unacceptable in my book.
To say I was disappointed was a major understatement. It’s gotten to the point that a guy can’t run a site without investing huge amounts of time trying to keep the rats from climbing aboard the ship. Since it was obvious it was going to be way more trouble than it was worth, I simply deleted the forums. It will be far easier to answer the same question 15 times than it will to continually hover over forums watching for spam and other filth posted by third-world losers who have nothing better to do with their time (or mine).
So there you have it — that’s what happened to the forums. Thanks to spamming dorks, my faith in humanity has diminished by 1.375%.
Support Forums Added
Another quick note to point out to Yasu/COX or WordPress theme users that I’ve just added a PunBB support forum, which can be accessed by clicking the “Forums” link above. If you have questions, requests, gripes, praises — whatever, feel free to post them there & I’ll do my best to get you taken care of.