A New Hope

[TorbenGB]

I've come across the CleanTalk anti-spam service that is:
1) extremely effective on my blog that was also inundated with spam comments and spam registrations,
2) very affordable: only $8 per year.

I'd like to use the service for this forum as well. The plugin is now installed but it's not activated yet because I haven't bought a license for it yet (and there's no trial). I hope it will work as well on this forum as it does on my blog. That would mean we could finally allow new user registrations again.

Too bad the community seems to be dwindling... I wish I'd seen this plugin many years ago!

[The00Dustin]

It is unfortunate about the community, but each time someone who needs help can find an answer on this forum, there's probably no where else they could have found it, so as long as you are willing to keep the site going, something to reduce the amount of time you have to spend to do so is certainly beneficial. Congratulations on finding that, and good luck with its implementation.

[TorbenGB]

Every single time I see an Ebay auction for a FingerWorks device, I contact the seller and ask them post a link to this site. It's a nice service to the future owner, and it might even help the seller by showing that users can still get support on these devices. It's not much in the way of marketing, but every little bit counts.

On the topic of (anti-)spam, the forum needs an upgrade from v3.0 to v3.1 before I can install that CleanTalk plugin. That upgrade itself means a risk of breaking stuff, so I haven't been willing to do anything about it yet (read: didn't have time).

I'd love for another user to volunteer for forum tech admin work specifically to cover tasks like this. I've been running this by myself for so long but my life priorities are changing and I feel sad that my personal priorities aren't in the best interests of this forum anymore. (No conflict of interest though, just a lack of time for admin work.)

[The00Dustin]

Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat as you (RE: Priorities), not to mention that I don't even have a device. In the meantime, the forum is at least functioning, but perhaps someone else is still lurking who can help.

[TorbenGB]

I've gotten a round tuit! (get it?)

I've now installed that new anti-spam plugin I mentioned, and I've enabled the new user registration again. Let's see whether the spammers can get past that! I'm keeping a close eye on the spam log now.

Update: The spam log shows that several spammers have already been blocked, even before anything was posted to this site. Yippiee!

[TorbenGB]

Another quick update:
The antispam plugin is frequently updated, and I am keeping up with installing each new version as it arrives. I can see that the plugin results become better with each new version. I am hopeful that this is a stable path for our forum.

[TorbenGB]

Another quick update:
A little more maintenance work was done. Users won't notice but the admins will (hopefully!) notice even better antispam results now.
Specifically, the forum's "Automod" modification engine has been upgraded to the newest version, so that the antispam plugin becomes more effective.