OFFICIAL New Forum Issues

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Mercerenies

Member
So, it's just a small thing, but I figure I'll ask it anyway. On the old forum, we could do
[hr]
and get a horizontal line that spanned the length of the post (basically what the <hr> tag does in HTML). It was really useful for separating parts of a large post, and it seems to be absent here. Is there any chance this is something that can be enabled easily?
 
K

Kai

Guest
Could i point out that i wasted far too much time creating a forum account today. All the normal probs, must have special characters etc, then i make a password, and it wants 10 characters instead of 8. I really dont have anything i can remember that is 10 characters with the symbols etc. so ive had to write it down. reduced productivity and security all in one.
it might not sound like a big prob on its own, but When you add this on top of all the little gamemaking niggles that pop up when juggling 5 bits of software and debugging. There will be no time left for making games.
I only need a small prototype today and i haven't even started yet.
 
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icuurd12b42

Guest
Could i point out that i wasted far too much time creating a forum account today. All the normal probs, must have special characters etc, then i make a password, and it wants 10 characters instead of 8. I really dont have anything i can remember that is 10 characters with the symbols etc. so ive had to write it down. reduced productivity and security all in one.
it might not sound like a big prob on its own, but When you add this on top of all the little gamemaking niggles that pop up when juggling 5 bits of software and debugging. There will be no time left for making games.
I only need a small prototype today and i haven't even started yet.
Use Keepas or something. I have 50 different passwords over 50 sites all 20 characters long
 
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rui.rosario

Guest
Use Keepas or something. I have 50 different passwords over 50 sites all 20 characters long
I use LastPass and my passwords aren't usually shorter than 32 characters, so the forum restrictions are not that hard to meet.
 
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PlayLight

Guest
I've been trying to reply to this post for a few hours now, but for some reason it is not allowing me to reply or post anything.
All other posts are going through without an issue.
Any ideas on why this might be?
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
I've been trying to reply to this post for a few hours now, but for some reason it is not allowing me to reply or post anything.
All other posts are going through without an issue.
Any ideas on why this might be?
Hmmm... That's really odd. I can't reply to it either (nor edit it nor anything!). I'll look into it and probably PM the author to make it again and just delete this post (if I can!!!!). Thanks for pointing it out, and I'll see if I can get to the root of the problem, although I'm not even sure where to start. :(
 
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PlayLight

Guest
Hmmm... That's really odd. I can't reply to it either (nor edit it nor anything!). I'll look into it and probably PM the author to make it again and just delete this post (if I can!!!!). Thanks for pointing it out, and I'll see if I can get to the root of the problem, although I'm not even sure where to start. :(
Thanks bud, I would say it's probably Gremlins. Someone's obviously fed them after midnight or got them wet.
 
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PlayLight

Guest
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icuurd12b42

Guest
I am having an issue in conversations, I tried to send a code to my friend to see if he can help me, He tried the code and it threw him an error because Xenforo removes [ i ] with italic text So I couldn't send him the whole code without give an italic text :/

for example this code
Code:
for(i=0; i<3; i++) {
Color[i] = c_white;
}
In the conversation become
Code:
for(i=0; i<3; i++) {
Color = c_white;
}
^ This supposed to be italic ^^'
Damn xenforo, Here is a screenshot:
That is pretty annoying :D
Use the code block
Code:
code
 

Micah_DS

Member
Can somebody do something about the Chinese/Japanese spam thread attacks that seem to happen every night?
I second this. Asian spam pops up quite frequently. I'm getting a bit tired of reporting, which is why I included "Elementary, my dear BOT son" in my last report.... sorry, I got a little bored with "another bot", and "oh look, it's another bot."

Is the situation harder to get a handle on than I'm thinking? Is it not a viable request? Just wondering why it hasn't been taken care of yet.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
The problem with these spam bots is that they are not exactly bots... There is a physical someone at the other end who is resolving the captcha and then letting the bot loose to post (afaik), and since the IP changes, as does the name and email, the forum software has no real way to detect this. There are other things that we may be able to do which I'm looking into though.
 

rIKmAN

Member
The problem with these spam bots is that they are not exactly bots... There is a physical someone at the other end who is resolving the captcha and then letting the bot loose to post (afaik), and since the IP changes, as does the name and email, the forum software has no real way to detect this. There are other things that we may be able to do which I'm looking into though.
Could you maybe detect chinese characters in the thread title/body and not allow the post / ban the user?

This is my current view of the forum:

 

Micah_DS

Member
Could you maybe detect chinese Korean character in the thread title/body and not allow the post / ban the user?
Actually, I already contacted @Nocturne about this yesterday with this very suggestion to block non-English posting, though I wasn't sure if this was possible because I have no knowledge of forum software and such.

He did already put something in place as a test, but it appears it didn't work. Just wanted to let you know that he is trying.
 

rIKmAN

Member
@rIKmAN - C'mon man. You'll only make @Nocturne cranky. He went over this yesterday.
Just wanted to let you know that he is trying.
He didn't go over it with me, maybe I missed a post/thread somewhere but it was 4 days ago he last posted in this thread, and it's happened every day (or night I should say) since.

I'm not trying to make him cranky or implying he isn't trying, I was putting a suggestion forward that may or may not help with the problem - guess I should just shutup and not say anything to try and help and fix the spam problem.
 

rIKmAN

Member
@Nocturne - didn't see the other thread, but after reading it I understand the 'cranky' comment from @Lonewolff lol! :p

You've locked the other thread also, so I'll post it here.

I can't speak for other people, but I'm not making a "big deal" out of it, I've made 2 posts on the subject and posted a picture to show what it looks like.

I wasn't a member of the old forums so I can't say how bad it was in comparison back then, but as I said to @Lonewolff, if bringing up an issue and offering a possible solution is interpreted as making a 'big deal' out of something and warrants the closure of a thread with your post worded the way it was, well then I'll just not bother in future.

Sorry for the song and dance, consider me mute on the issue.

For anyone else reading, I've just found out: click the spam username, click ignore, refresh.
 
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Micah_DS

Member
@rIKmAN I'm sorry you felt a bit of hostility when you were merely suggesting something helpful with good intent.

But please continue to post whenever you have a possible solution in mind. It's the "this is getting annoying, please fix" posts that are the ones we should avoid giving. You offered an idea to solve the issue. I'm sure those posts are always welcome.

Also, in hindsight, I realize I shouldn't have offered my solution to @Nocturne in a personal message format, but it should've been discussed in a public thread. That way, you - and everyone else - would've already seen Nocturne responded to the idea of blocking based on language and/or characters. But, TBH, I'm not really sure what he did. In explaining, I'll quote from the conversation:
I said:
I have no knowledge on how the forum software works, so forgive me if this is a totally ignorant suggestion, but is it possible to simply prevent posts that contain Hangul/Hangeul (Korean) characters, throwing an error when the post is attempted? There are sometimes also Japanese and Chinese posts, but almost all of them have been Korean thus far.
Nocturne's response said:
I have found a way to possibly limit these things in the Admin CP and have enabled it for testing. Hopefully this will indeed cut down on the number of spam being posted.
 

RangerX

Member
This makes me think again of a solution that would prevent most spam on the forum. I suggested it many times. I know you might not have the necessary staff to pull it off (althought I doubt it) but with my suggestion there, such spam would not happen, just like it does not happen on forums having such a policy:

Mods should approve any new member before letting them post. Then a "new member" tag should be given and that person cannot create a thread until it has done some serious posts. First post should also be approved.
This is what big serious forums like NeoGaf are doing and it works like a charm. I really think we should deserve more control here too.
 
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NPT

Guest
This makes me think again of a solution that would prevent most spam on the forum. I suggested it many times. I know you might not have the necessary staff to pull it off (althought I doubt it) but with my suggestion there, such spam would not happen, just like it does not happen on forums having such a policy:

Mods should approve any new member before letting them post. Then a "new member" tag should be given and that person cannot create a thread until it has done some serious posts. First post should also be approved.
This is what big serious forums like NeoGaf are doing and it works like a charm. I really think we should deserve more control here too.
That might be fine for NeoGAF who's existence is the forum, but it's a terrible idea for a forum intended to support a product. Asking customers to achieve a post count before creating a topic is bad for business.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
First posts cannot (and will not) be moderated. That's something that we, as a support forum, cannot do for the moment. As for moderating users that is something that could be done, but it would require more manpower and us ensuring that we have staff 24hours which with voluntary staff is not something we can 100% guarantee. As I've mentioned elsewhere, we have improved certain areas of the spam filters but the filter first has to learn what to reject which means for a few days at least we'll still see some spam, but I'm confident this will reduce over time. I would also point out (again) that we aren't actually getting any more spam than on the previous forum, it's just that they are posting in more prominent sections whereas before they almost always posted in Off Topic - which in turn makes you guys think there is some terrible problem. There's not and most of it is dealt with the moment it appears, or within a very short timeframe.
 
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icuurd12b42

Guest
Yeah, most people sign up to ask a question so the idea of blocking new members from posting is pretty bad. and it's something no forum had done since the early 2000's
 
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renex

Guest
I solved spam problems on my forum entirely by adding a new box under "i agree to terms" called "I am a robot" which puts the new user on a group which can only see a notice telling them how to turn that off.

This gets 100% of spambots.
 

rIKmAN

Member
it's just that they are posting in more prominent sections whereas before they almost always posted in Off Topic - which in turn makes you guys think there is some terrible problem.
Again not sure about the way the old forums worked, but they clog up the New Posts section, so the section they make the posts in is irrelevant on the current forum.

Also as I said earlier I don't think anyone has called it a "terrible problem", and don't take this the wrong way because it's not meant maliciously, but I kind of feel like the only person overreacting about the spam is you about users reporting it.

Maybe you have received loads of messages, PMs or whatever which we as normal plebians don't see - but I have literally posted 2 messages regarding it, and I've not seen anyone going crazy about it like you have implied.

Hopefully the new measures you have put in place learn whatever they need to learn and help out some.

Clicking the spam username, hitting ignore and then refreshing is what I'll be doing from now on though.

Can some sort of privledges be granted to more users to be able to delete blatant spam posts like these Korean ones. Obviously if this power was abused, the offender would need a good kick up the bum. No doubt there is some sort of log as to what has been deleted and by whom?

I spend enough time on here, I'd be more than happy to help out.
I was going to post a similar offer myself, but I have not been a part of the community for long enough so thought better of it.
It seems the times I use the forums (I'm a night owl / vampire) seems to coincide with the spam posts.
 

Micah_DS

Member
we have improved certain areas of the spam filters but the filter first has to learn what to reject which means for a few days at least we'll still see some spam, but I'm confident this will reduce over time.
Ah, ok, nice! Then I will do my best to wait patiently and I'll continue reporting each individual spammer when I see them. I hope everyone else will do the same.
 

RangerX

Member
I didn't mean waiting 100 post. Even just the first one could be good enough, but that's not a possible solution anyways.
As for approving users, I am happy its a possibility. You wouldn't need staff 24/7 though, this is an illusion. A customer who wants to post here or is having an important question isn't blocked from the internet and will probably want to wait a day or two if need be. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking a user approval would only be doable with a 50 peep staff and that it would drive away users. I don't believe that for a second.
 
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aamatniekss

Member
I dont know if this has been already reported, but I am too lazy to check all posts in this topic.
But the alerts about new posts in topics dont show up very often. Here you can see 1 example right now, I am watching the #time2meetyourmaker topic, but I didnt get any alert when logging in today for the first time, but as you can see in the 'New Posts' section already, there have been a lot of new posts for the topic. This happens to me all the time, haven't received alerts, but when I check the topic, theres bunch of new posts.

 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
Have you checked your alert preferences (in the user profile section)? Could it be something in your browser like cookie clean up? Personally I haven't had an issue with alerts, so it's difficult for me to say what could be up...
 

aamatniekss

Member
Hmm, I got all the alerts turned on in the alert preferences, and cookies cleaned pretty regularly, it still happens all the time.
 
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Aura

Guest
No security measures can protect against people signing up to post spam. But there's nothing that stops us from taking steps to reduce the amount of spam posted, though. Generally, spambots keep posting spam until their accounts are removed. (79 spam topics were posted by the same user in the Community Chat forum the day before yesterday)

I think everybody is suddenly making a big deal out of it, because the forum currently lacks a topic posting cooldown period. That allows the spambots to keep posting spam until they are suspended. Why don't we put a half an hour long cooldown period before one can post another thread? It's not like every legitimate user goes about creating threads that often. (...unless you start complaining against it just for the sake of it? ^^')

That would stop spambots from posting spam continuously and the New Posts section won't get flood-filled with spam. There won't be pages of spam topics either.
 

Nocturne

Friendly Tyrant
Forum Staff
Admin
I think everybody is suddenly making a big deal out of it, because the forum currently lacks a topic posting cooldown period. That allows the spambots to keep posting spam until they are suspended. Why don't we put a half an hour long cooldown period before one can post another thread? It's not like every legitimate user goes about creating threads that often. (...unless you start complaining against it just for the sake of it? ^^')
The current forum software only permits a general posting cooldown, which does not distinguish between posts-as-replies and posts-as-threads. So, for example, people that are helping in the programming forum would have to wait until the cooldown period is over to to reply to individual topics... which would pretty much destroy the will to help of most active members around here! We have set this threshold slightly higher, but more would start to punish legitimate users for wanting to help... There are still other things I can try, like custom plugins from the Xenforo community, but I'd like to see how well the filter I've put in place works first as it should "learn" what to reject over time and improve things.
 

aamatniekss

Member
Yep, tried cleaning all browser history and cookies, and cache and everything. Still happens. Came to the website after half a day, and I follow both the Jam and Time2MeetYourMaker discussions, however I got no alerts at all. But you can see there's plenty of new posts since I was last on.

Curious if it's like that for anyone else?

 
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rui.rosario

Guest
Yep, tried cleaning all browser history and cookies, and cache and everything. Still happens. Came to the website after half a day, and I follow both the Jam and Time2MeetYourMaker discussions, however I got no alerts at all. But you can see there's plenty of new posts since I was last on.

Curious if it's like that for anyone else?

it happens to me when I leave the post with at least one new, unread message (for example in a new page). After going through all messages it starts getting alerts again though
 

aamatniekss

Member
@rIKmAN Got your alert this time and the ones in the pic, but didn't get some other ones :/ As you can see from the Humble GMC Jam discussion I got no alert, when it should've been the most recent one.

@rui.rosario Hmm, im gonna test that out if that's the case.

 
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Aura

Guest
@aamatniekss: I think you're expecting an alert for every new post. But unless you have read the post that the last alert was for, you won't get any further alerts for replies to that topic.
 

RangerX

Member
When there's more than one reply, the system brings you the first post you didn't read and tells you there's more. That's perfect in my opinion.
 

aamatniekss

Member
@aamatniekss: I think you're expecting an alert for every new post. But unless you have read the post that the last alert was for, you won't get any further alerts for replies to that topic.
Nope, I hadn't been since yesterday evening online, and you can see I got alerts for other topics I follow, but none for GMC jam topic, while there were around 5-10 new posts(didn't count). And I got 0 alerts. I know you get only 1 which shows, 'there may be more posts after this', if there's more, But im not even getting that 1.

But I think it might actually be the case, when the system thinks I haven't read all the posts, so it doesn't notify me anymore. Anyway, it's not a big deal, just annoying.
 
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Dengar

Guest
is there any reason why the forum wont let me search the word "gps"?
 
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FoxInABox

Guest
Underscore "_" is not considered a special character when making password, please correct this.
 
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renex

Guest
I was forced to replace my password. Did it on my phone, obviously, because I don't open my email on foreign computers.

Got locked out from using the new password. Solved approximately 40 captchas and was not let in. Had to log in to gmail on this computer and reset it here, a second time within a short interval.

That prompted me for a new password. It needed unnecessary complexity which is what makes me forget it. Not allowed to use old ones, or the one i changed to on my phone 3 minutes earlier.

Now I have a password that, to be perfectly honest, I already forgot. Will have to recover again when I get home.
 
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Nickylivia

Guest
how about put your passwords into a tool [url=http://www.passwordmanagers.net/products/Password-Manager-7.html]Password Manager[/URL] instead of remember by yourself? It is puzzled if reset passwrod again and again.The tool is free and useful,hope to give you some help.
I was forced to replace my password. Did it on my phone, obviously, because I don't open my email on foreign computers.

Got locked out from using the new password. Solved approximately 40 captchas and was not let in. Had to log in to gmail on this computer and reset it here, a second time within a short interval.

That prompted me for a new password. It needed unnecessary complexity which is what makes me forget it. Not allowed to use old ones, or the one i changed to on my phone 3 minutes earlier.

Now I have a password that, to be perfectly honest, I already forgot. Will have to recover again when I get home.
 
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NPT

Guest
Was reporting SPAM, got the message on the second SPAM topic.

"You must wait at least 20 seconds before performing this action"

Not if you want me to continue reporting SPAM, I'm not.
 
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