Hey all,
Some big changes are about to be made to our web forums. In an effort to combat the ongoing spam problem, we will be switching our forums to SMF (we currently use phpBB) in the near future. We weren’t originally planning on making the switch so soon, but the spam attempts have gotten much more vicious over the past few days, so we feel it is best to make the switch ASAP.
The installation of SMF will most likely take place on Thursday night. It is possible to convert a phpBB database to an SMF one, so all of the existing posts will most likely be transfered, and you should be able to use your current username once we’ve made the switch (without having to reregister). I do not know whether or not if users will have to reset their passwords, but I will be sure to let all of you know once I know the answer to that.
Cheers,
Mark
October 25th, 2010 at 3:59 am
Can’t wait! You will like being able to ban in one step instead of in 3! There might be tiny glitches like the first letter of signatures might be cut off in the transfer or passwords might all be reset (Sandman would know more about it from when SA switched from phpBB to SMF) but yeah we have had no regrets since our move! Hope it goes off without a hitch!
Just incase you should also backup the database before the transfer
October 25th, 2010 at 10:09 am
I registered at a forum recently that woul not allow free email addresses like gmail, hotmail, etc… They said it was because of spam problems and greatly reduced spam. Not sure if that’s doable.
October 26th, 2010 at 6:28 am
Yeah many forums also do not allow email addresses ending in .ru neither even though there are a few non-spammers using .ru email addresses. Some argue that they don’t want to get a separate email address just for forums but it actually keep them knowing where the spam is coming from if they only use one for forums, and keeps business or private email accounts free from spam.
But with free accounts, the argument is that not everyone has a service that gives an email account. Or one with as good security. Like mine for example. My ISP sucks and the email client sucks. I like the security in Gmail. But it is true that since they are free, that spammers sign up with free accounts using spamming programs (called bots). So really it is up to the forum owner which route they take. One of the forums I am on I could not sign up with my gmail account.
SA has SMF and we allow free email accounts and still have no issue with spam because we use a few security modifications that work well.
However, I do like how phpBB3 works with the moderating posts in queue. 