Wetlook World Forum

Message # 48313.14

Subject: Nigel has a point (and why the French dude pissed people off so much)

Date: Mon 03/01/11 06:35:38 GMT

Name: Miguel

Email:

Website:

By Nigel - nigel@wetlook.com Sun 02/01/11 15:23:22 GMT

Website: www.wetlook.com

Well, I've always been opposed to a login for many reasons, the main one being that I want this forum to be open and inclusive. I hate that society and the internet is getting more and more 'locked down'. Maybe I am trying to live in a utopian world, so what ? Wouldn't we all want to live in a world where we didn't have to worry if if left our doors unlocked ? It that such a bad thing to pomote ?

On a more practical level, having a login system means that people have to sign up, and the sign ups have to be processed. If this is done automatically, then where is the extra protection ? Any troll can just do several sign ups a day, and keep doing them as his logins get blocked. He can easily setup multiple email addresses from random IPs to register with.

If you think this is unlikely, then think about our current troll. He is in the South of France, on a dynamic IP. This means he only has to power cycle his modem, and he gets a new IP. Yes, I can block his whole area, but then he just uses one of a million proxies which gives him a random IP each time he comes here.

This guy will NOT be stopped by a login system. All it will do is slow down his posts (perhaps).

The alternative to an automatic sign up process, is that I, or the moderators have to hand check each sign up. Last time I checked there were around 3000 'unique' visitors here each week. This was tested by setting an ID cookie, obviously some people visit from multiple browsers/devices, and some clear their cookies, so this was just an estimate. Even if only 10% of people sign up, that is 300 signups to be processed, and they had better be processed pretty quickly, or guess who is going to get the complaints !

So, call me lazy, but for me, having a login system is a) not going to solve the troll issue, and b) is going to be a LOT of extra work for me each week.

Alternatively, like some forums, I could just process the sign up every week or so, and watch the forum slowly die... no thanks.

The other reason that people have been asking for logins is to 'protect their names', but again, most forums only give a very limited protection. If you sign up as "LeonMoomin", then any troll can use "Leon Moomin" or probably "leonmoomin" or "LeonMoomin " (space at end), or any other slight modification. Most people are not going to notice the difference.

I took over running this forum when we had problems with the old Bravenet one. I do not run this forum to make money. I get a little money from the adversisers, and I have had a massive 2 donation during the whole of 2010, thanks to the 2 guys concerned, but it seems no thanks from anyone else. I spent a couple of solid weeks writing the original code in ASP, anyone with more than a couple of brain-cells will realise that you cannot just 'copy the Bravenet forum'. Over the past year or 2 I have spent at least a month of my time slowly re-coding the forum in C, to make it faster, and less of a drain on my server, as well as constant tweaks and tricks to keep out the spammers.

Think about this... thsi is a completely open forum, and how much 'spam' do we get here ? Probaly less than 1%. The the recent problems with spammers have been from people that are 'wetlook aware'. There is no general spam here ! Do you all think that is by magic ? No, it has taken a lot of careful programming and protection measures. Less than 2% of the spam removed by myself and moderators is 'general spam' e.g. pen*s enlargement, free degrees, and all the general crap you get on other open forums/blogs and I'm sure in your everyday email.

So, if you see the occasional bit of crap here, don't go on about it. If you want it removed quickly then EMAIL ME !, or just ignore it,k and it will be dealt with in due course.

I have been 'nominally' on holiday for the past 2 weeks, but have been checking the forum at least twice a day for problems, I have far better ways of spending my Xmas and New Year, so if anyone wants to run a boring, run of the mill, crap, login forum, then please go ahead and set one up, and see who goes there...

Also, during the last 2 weeks, only 2 people have had the sense to bother to email me about issues on the forum. Everyone else obviously just assumes that even over the holiday period, I'm glued here to my monitor, reading every damn message ?

To those of you who appreciate all that I do for this community, I wish you a very Happy New Year,

for those who don't like this forum, or the way I try to run it, just F&^K OFF elsewhere and take your ill-informed, opinions with you.

Nigel

Forum Admin