Starsailor Message Board

['Boo]

The current on-line climate is dominated for many of us by the insidious invasion of Spammers - variously pedalling whatever it is they hope to profit from or use to relieve you of some money. Even if they don't want to get rich, they clearly get off on making a nuisance of themselves.

The majority of new registrations on the MB at the moment are Spammers, often automated processes that have no intention of using the board or returning, initially posting their URL in their profile to feed other on-line activity. These URLs are often to offensive and/or adult content, lately they've increasingly led to a page that automatically tries to install Trojans and viruses.

I've consequently adopted a very hard-line policy in order to protect the genuine membership from this unpleasantness. Whilst this ensures that the board remains largely safe for regular users, it can also inconvenience the genuine, as it relies on me making judgement calls from a modest amount of information.

As you register, you will be advised that the membership needs admin activation before you can log in and post. I'm sent an e-mail at the same time advising me that you've joined. I review the profile and if it looks genuine, activate it and you'll receive another message from the board advising you that it is now activated.

I am very familiar with the patterns of registration that tend to suggest the registration isn't genuine and in such cases, I will delete any URLs put in profiles if I don't recognise it as one likely to be used by a music fan: MySpace, image sharing sites, blogs, band sites etc. I also check the e-mail address used and often who has registered that domain if it's not a known mail provider.

If after 24 hours you haven't received a notification from the board that your account has been activated or have been unable to log in when trying (sometimes the e-mails do just go astray or are treated as Spam themseves by some mail services) please e-mail me to bring it to my attention - my address is in every post and you don't need to be logged in to access that.

It's always going to be possible that I've made the wrong judgement on a registration profile and will happily put that right where that's the case. I realise that this policy will inevitably inconvenience someone from time to time, but the nature of the material being posted in profiles is getting increasingly dangerous and offensive and I feel that I've no option in order to keep everyone here safe.

Whilst the board software is always at the highest level of security settings and updated routinely with every patch, the Spammers very quickly adapt to circumvent any measures that hinder them, so applying a human judgement has thus far proved to be the best deterrent.
_________________
Keeper of Good Souls Interactive the official fan archive at Starsailor.net
See the Starsailor FAQ