ZionFireFriends

Just a heads up for those of you who invite people to join ZFF. You might want to let them know that:



We have tried to keep the forums registration process open in a way that new members can post as as soon as they register and confirm. However, the spambot traffic has increased to an unbelievably high level (and some are now including their filth in their registration info) that <S>we have decided to move to the admin validation system for new registrations. It is so frustrating to have to deal with this daily and have no way to fight back. The only thing we can do is absolutely not even allow the spammer names to appear on this board.



That means that if someone registers, they will have to wait for one of the admins to validate their account before they are approved as members. This could delay their access to the board for several hours or longer until one of us is able to go through the validation queue. We regret inconveniencing the participation of real members in any way, we really do, but this seems the best course for now. We will likely kept it this way until the new forum software is released with it's more effective spammer prevention.</S>

All that I just said above?



Forget it. It is just too much work to investigate registrations to sort out real people from spammers. I would rather do other things with my time. So, no more admin validation.



We are returning to the email validaton system, only this time, I have created a SpamBot Pen that will corral all spammers who manage to validate their registration in a member group that cannot post on the board. You won't even see them in the member list. They will be trapped there forever!



New members who are real people can get out of the SpamBot Pen by making one post in a designated topic. It will be a very simple thing to do, because there will only be one topic there. And, if any spambots manage to get through that, I have one more trick up my sleeve....

Invisionfree has added upgraded spam protection to the forums that prevents the bots from registering and posting.



We have now disbanded the SpamBot pen and resumed normal forum registration procedures. Over the last year or so, we had trapped over 6,000 spambots in the pen. And nary a one got out to post in the forums, so it was a successful device that kept the forums free of spam.



New registration no longer have to go through "customs". So now, its even easier to become a ZFFriend.