Whilst people could share a blacklist of IPs, they change so quickly that it might be easier just to manage our own.
true .
once you add to blacklist of patterns or ips - it won't log it, and exit them out of the application with "We seem to have a problem......"
to reduce log size.
I was thinking it would be fun to redirect them to a page that takes 5 minute to load or send them to the security agency in their country of origin or the spamcollection links.
Don't know if a redirect to another site would get you in trouble though.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
If they're already on the blacklist there's no sense in logging them again, right?
right, that was what I figured and wrote it that way.
How about a 'site closed' message?
yeah, whatever the forum admins want. just search for exit and change the 2nd and 3rd exits to whatever you want. I should have put a translate in there. (will do next update if there is one).
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
No effect upon installing the plugin, no Settings option in the Dashboard.
Your readme says the list folder and contents should be writable, but writable for WHOM? Owner? Group? World? Exactly what permissions should be present on which files?
It might be good to update the readme with those details.
@got2code said:
Sorry guys, I readily admit confusion over this plugin.
Why are we trying this approach instead of tapping into the known bad lists at stopforumspam.com?
Also, people mention a "Why do you want to join?" field on the registration form. Does that have to be created manually? This plugin didn't create it.
I'm running 2.0.18.8.
1.There is already a plugin that does this, also some bots aren't on there; remember that is a list of ips, which can change at anytime.
2.This field appears when the "Approval" registration method is active, this is the method intended to go with this plugin: it detects patterns and then blocks them.
clearly you should not be using this plugin. please use something else that suits your needs.
Also, I don't have the time to explain the concept of writeable by who? There are numerous tutorials on the web on permissions dealing with who owns file and who the owner is when executing a php web-based script. The file does not need to be writeable by world on a properly configured server.
Also read the description of the plugin before using it. i don't have time to reply to you with respect to anymore of my plugins - got2code, sorry for the inconvenience, or the convenience.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
@peregrine, I'm on your side. We're all upset by the bots and trying to stop them dead together. Flaming honest questions doesn't help Vanilla, your plugin, or the donations you might receive.
I obviously understand the R/W permissions concepts, since I was asking for clarification on scope. The easier we make it for even novice users to use the tools, the better the plugin will be received.
Also, I did read the descriptions on the site and in the readme file. The clearer they are, the fewer questions people will ask.
@Tama thanks for clarifying # 2. That's what I was missing. But as for # 1, I don't think so, or I'm blind. I've analyzed the code for the available plugins--one of them checks stopforumspam.com on COMMENTS but not on the registration form. I think that's a big source of our grief. or am I overlooking a plugin that does that already?
@got2code, please just drop it , animosity is not something that is welcome here. Just create your own plugin solution with what is available or start from scratch .
From the start you have been using forceful tactics to get your way and that is not fair, that is not civil so please just stop. peregrine is a great person an honest person and an ethical person. If you can't take it like it is , it is not his fault. people are glad to donate and it has nothing to do with someone kissing their ass to do so. It has something to do with gratitude.
I really am on your side. I have ZERO animosity, I doubt nobody's ethics. Re-read all my posts, you've misunderstood me from the start. (Sorry I pushed too hard on the GitHub thing, I was just trying for more open involvement, didn't realize it might tick anyone off.) If you doubt my commitment, look up my involvement on Wikipedia in keeping the Vanilla Forums Wikipedia article alive.
I'm worried about civility because I'm worried about Vanilla. Mark O'Sullivan seems down for the count. Awesome guy, he hosted excellent images for the user documentation, then something happened. The tone of his replies become more discouraged, then the documentation images disappeared. No replies to recent inquiries, still no images in the docs. Running a startup is brutal. Read his blog history. You'll see it.
So growing the community matters more than ever. If we jump on each other (we coders love to do it, let's face it) and call it "just telling the truth" then new users will be afraid to join in, we lose community, and development slows.
Smart teams aren't smart because they have the smartest people, they are smart because they communicate well. The civility in some of these threads hasn't been good. New users in particular, not wanting a fight, will look for another platform. And then all of us might need to.
Civility = mutual respect, mutual purpose (especially for people who don't seem as smart as we think we are)
Vote me off the island if you want. I'm tired of fighting the bots anyway, some other forums have it figured out. But then you'll have one less voice for respectful communication, and fewer and fewer minds solving the issues with you.
I'm worried about civility because I'm worried about Vanilla
Try not to worry , Vanilla stands on it's own and does not need us or the forum. The forum is for the purpose of helping each other out while using the software which is free and open source, we are thankful because of it.
So growing the community matters more than ever.
The community will not make or break Vanilla, it is self sustaining , we are not. This community grows based on a need to know basis and willingness to donate contributions such as plugins and themes. For the benefit of all in need. We are glad people join specially if they give back to the community.
Smart teams aren't smart because they have the smartest people, they are smart because they communicate well.
Not sure I understand or agree since smart is a matter of your perspective. If you don't know something and someone else does, you consider them smarter than you. But that does not make them any smarter in reality.
All I can say is that everyone in this community who donates time specially as much time as peregrine has, is already Kind. They don't need to be sweet and candy coated, it's just code for goodness sakes !!
Just look at his profile and see his contributions and then tell me he is not kind or he need to be kinder.
"I don’t give myself high marks on suffering fools. I’m not rude to those I consider foolish, but I strenuously and lamentably evade them. But I do see people who handle fools well. Many members of the clergy do, as do many great teachers. In my experience, Midwesterners are more likely to treat fools well. Natural politicians do so, too. "
I say:
I might be rude to those I consider foolish, but I will strive to strenuously and lamentably evade them instead and not enter into discussion with them or field their questions.
The people who I will strive to avoid are people who don't have the ability to:
To post the version of vanilla they are using, when they start a discussion topic.
People who are too lazy to search for an answer, or give up after 30 seconds of searching.
People who would rather ask step-by-step instructions for something that an elementary school child could read a tutorial on and learn in 20 minutes (I will gladly point people to tutorials. And I will ignore those, who ignore going through a tutorial out of sheer laziness or lack of time).
People who carp and provide little to nothing in support of community and then crow about how much they helped.
People who continually prove that they cannot follow instructions. Obviously everyone slips up once in a while.
The way I figure it, if you can't read an announcement, can't search, and can't read, and can't keep your forum up to date with security fixes (i.e. vanilla 2.0.18.8) - should you really be running a forum, because you will be putting your members at risk.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
Yep, and I can attest to that. Out of 100 new users 99 do not comply with the simplest requests or bother to search before posting. The only way to notice this is if you spend a great deal on here helping people or helping yourself.
I also came to realize that some people are beyond help unless they study up the basics, and that out of those new users maybe one or two will ever contribute an addon or advice or even post a solution.
Most people just want to get their forum going and do not care about the community unless they have problems.
Being that we all are volunteers, even the owners and admin, volunteer here.(except Minion he is a slave:( ) That means no one is expected to help anyone if they can't do not know how or if the user has ridiculously stupid questions that can be found on line easier. That does not mean I have not helped such people. It only means that the time was wasted because they obviously did not learn anything since they ask the same question later. So what is one to do? I would say let them sweat a little .
I think that if you compare my helpfulness against my neediness from when I first joined , you will see that I asked for little help as possible. I tried very hard not to be a burden on the community and learned the basics on my own.
The people here who really know this stuff, really know the stuff, I am still learning however it does not keep me from contributing any way I can in gratitude for the education I received here.
This is a great community and people should put out more to make it better by contributing and by helping others as they got help themselves.
This is not a chat room or a social place , it is a place to do code business having to do with forum software . But we also can like or dislike certain people. That does not affect the quality of help or product, simply curtails it's support beyond the elemental.
I am glad for people like peregrine who have helped people thousands of times. And even after so many like the ones he described. It is tedious to say the least. Sometimes they don't even use the reactions to give points etc. The least they could do .
None of this really has anything to do with Vanilla . It has to do with people and that is the problem. People need to be kinder to us some of us are already kind enough ... for the most part given the circs...
Comments
true
.
once you add to blacklist of patterns or ips - it won't log it, and exit them out of the application with "We seem to have a problem......"
to reduce log size.
I was thinking it would be fun to redirect them to a page that takes 5 minute to load or send them to the security agency in their country of origin
or the spamcollection links.
Don't know if a redirect to another site would get you in trouble though.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
If they're already on the blacklist there's no sense in logging them again, right? How about a 'site closed' message?
There was an error rendering this rich post.
right, that was what I figured and wrote it that way.
yeah, whatever the forum admins want. just search for exit and change the 2nd and 3rd exits to whatever you want. I should have put a translate in there. (will do next update if there is one).
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
I would honestly just kill the script as soon as you determined it was a spammer or blacklist.
Something like returning a 404 or 501 response header. Don't let them eat your resources either.
Search first
Check out the Documentation! We are always looking for new content and pull requests.
Click on insightful, awesome, and funny reactions to thank community volunteers for their valuable posts.
adding them in .htaccess would be the best way.
a 402 or a 410 response header. might be good too.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
I like honesty - so i did this
and this too. return 404 header
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
No effect upon installing the plugin, no Settings option in the Dashboard.
Your readme says the list folder and contents should be writable, but writable for WHOM? Owner? Group? World? Exactly what permissions should be present on which files?
It might be good to update the readme with those details.
Sorry guys, I readily admit confusion over this plugin.
Why are we trying this approach instead of tapping into the known bad lists at stopforumspam.com?
Also, people mention a "Why do you want to join?" field on the registration form. Does that have to be created manually? This plugin didn't create it.
I'm running 2.0.18.8.
1.There is already a plugin that does this, also some bots aren't on there; remember that is a list of ips, which can change at anytime.
2.This field appears when the "Approval" registration method is active, this is the method intended to go with this plugin: it detects patterns and then blocks them.
There was an error rendering this rich post.
@got2code
clearly you should not be using this plugin. please use something else that suits your needs.
Also, I don't have the time to explain the concept of writeable by who? There are numerous tutorials on the web on permissions dealing with who owns file and who the owner is when executing a php web-based script. The file does not need to be writeable by world on a properly configured server.
Also read the description of the plugin before using it. i don't have time to reply to you with respect to anymore of my plugins - got2code, sorry for the inconvenience, or the convenience.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
@peregrine, I'm on your side. We're all upset by the bots and trying to stop them dead together. Flaming honest questions doesn't help Vanilla, your plugin, or the donations you might receive.
I obviously understand the R/W permissions concepts, since I was asking for clarification on scope. The easier we make it for even novice users to use the tools, the better the plugin will be received.
Also, I did read the descriptions on the site and in the readme file. The clearer they are, the fewer questions people will ask.
@Tama thanks for clarifying # 2. That's what I was missing. But as for # 1, I don't think so, or I'm blind. I've analyzed the code for the available plugins--one of them checks stopforumspam.com on COMMENTS but not on the registration form. I think that's a big source of our grief. or am I overlooking a plugin that does that already?
@got2code
I'm done replying to you in any shape or form. this is not a flame, but an honest reply.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
Civility is important, even in honest replies.
@got2code, please just drop it , animosity is not something that is welcome here. Just create your own plugin solution with what is available or start from scratch .
From the start you have been using forceful tactics to get your way and that is not fair, that is not civil so please just stop. peregrine is a great person an honest person and an ethical person. If you can't take it like it is , it is not his fault. people are glad to donate and it has nothing to do with someone kissing their ass to do so. It has something to do with gratitude.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
I really am on your side. I have ZERO animosity, I doubt nobody's ethics. Re-read all my posts, you've misunderstood me from the start. (Sorry I pushed too hard on the GitHub thing, I was just trying for more open involvement, didn't realize it might tick anyone off.) If you doubt my commitment, look up my involvement on Wikipedia in keeping the Vanilla Forums Wikipedia article alive.
I'm worried about civility because I'm worried about Vanilla. Mark O'Sullivan seems down for the count. Awesome guy, he hosted excellent images for the user documentation, then something happened. The tone of his replies become more discouraged, then the documentation images disappeared. No replies to recent inquiries, still no images in the docs. Running a startup is brutal. Read his blog history. You'll see it.
So growing the community matters more than ever. If we jump on each other (we coders love to do it, let's face it) and call it "just telling the truth" then new users will be afraid to join in, we lose community, and development slows.
Smart teams aren't smart because they have the smartest people, they are smart because they communicate well. The civility in some of these threads hasn't been good. New users in particular, not wanting a fight, will look for another platform. And then all of us might need to.
Civility = mutual respect, mutual purpose (especially for people who don't seem as smart as we think we are)
Vote me off the island if you want. I'm tired of fighting the bots anyway, some other forums have it figured out. But then you'll have one less voice for respectful communication, and fewer and fewer minds solving the issues with you.
Sarah Sharp on how programmers communicate, and why it matters (in dollars and code): http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/sarah_sharp/
"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." - Dalai Lama
Try not to worry , Vanilla stands on it's own and does not need us or the forum. The forum is for the purpose of helping each other out while using the software which is free and open source, we are thankful because of it.
The community will not make or break Vanilla, it is self sustaining , we are not. This community grows based on a need to know basis and willingness to donate contributions such as plugins and themes. For the benefit of all in need. We are glad people join specially if they give back to the community.
Not sure I understand or agree since smart is a matter of your perspective. If you don't know something and someone else does, you consider them smarter than you. But that does not make them any smarter in reality.
All I can say is that everyone in this community who donates time specially as much time as peregrine has, is already Kind. They don't need to be sweet and candy coated, it's just code for goodness sakes !!
Just look at his profile and see his contributions and then tell me he is not kind or he need to be kinder.
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/opinion/brooks-suffering-fools-gladly.html
Paul Brooks said:
"I don’t give myself high marks on suffering fools. I’m not rude to those I consider foolish, but I strenuously and lamentably evade them. But I do see people who handle fools well. Many members of the clergy do, as do many great teachers. In my experience, Midwesterners are more likely to treat fools well. Natural politicians do so, too. "
I say:
I might be rude to those I consider foolish, but I will strive to strenuously and lamentably evade them instead and not enter into discussion with them or field their questions.
The people who I will strive to avoid are people who don't have the ability to:
To post the version of vanilla they are using, when they start a discussion topic.
People who are too lazy to search for an answer, or give up after 30 seconds of searching.
People who would rather ask step-by-step instructions for something that an elementary school child could read a tutorial on and learn in 20 minutes (I will gladly point people to tutorials. And I will ignore those, who ignore going through a tutorial out of sheer laziness or lack of time).
People who carp and provide little to nothing in support of community and then crow about how much they helped.
People who continually prove that they cannot follow instructions. Obviously everyone slips up once in a while.
The way I figure it, if you can't read an announcement, can't search, and can't read, and can't keep your forum up to date with security fixes (i.e. vanilla 2.0.18.8) - should you really be running a forum, because you will be putting your members at risk.
I may not provide the completed solution you might desire, but I do try to provide honest suggestions to help you solve your issue.
Yep, and I can attest to that. Out of 100 new users 99 do not comply with the simplest requests or bother to search before posting. The only way to notice this is if you spend a great deal on here helping people or helping yourself.
I also came to realize that some people are beyond help unless they study up the basics, and that out of those new users maybe one or two will ever contribute an addon or advice or even post a solution.
Most people just want to get their forum going and do not care about the community unless they have problems.
Being that we all are volunteers, even the owners and admin, volunteer here.(except Minion he is a slave:( ) That means no one is expected to help anyone if they can't do not know how or if the user has ridiculously stupid questions that can be found on line easier. That does not mean I have not helped such people. It only means that the time was wasted because they obviously did not learn anything since they ask the same question later. So what is one to do? I would say let them sweat a little .
I think that if you compare my helpfulness against my neediness from when I first joined , you will see that I asked for little help as possible. I tried very hard not to be a burden on the community and learned the basics on my own.
The people here who really know this stuff, really know the stuff, I am still learning however it does not keep me from contributing any way I can in gratitude for the education I received here.
This is a great community and people should put out more to make it better by contributing and by helping others as they got help themselves.
This is not a chat room or a social place , it is a place to do code business having to do with forum software . But we also can like or dislike certain people. That does not affect the quality of help or product, simply curtails it's support beyond the elemental.
I am glad for people like peregrine who have helped people thousands of times. And even after so many like the ones he described. It is tedious to say the least. Sometimes they don't even use the reactions to give points etc. The least they could do .
None of this really has anything to do with Vanilla . It has to do with people and that is the problem. People need to be kinder to us some of us are already kind enough ... for the most part given the circs...
❌ ✊ ♥. ¸. ••. ¸♥¸. ••. ¸♥ ✊ ❌