Why I now avoid some biz content like I avoid p#rn

[unpinkpanther]

Thanks for sharing your experience

(Also love your can-do attitude. Age is just a number, right?)

Your website support idea sounds great. How do you plan to make your help and resources different from what's already out there?

[Steve MacLellan]

Originally Posted by unpinkpanther

How do you plan to make your help and resources different from what's already out there?

Each company has a knowledge base software and support desk. Sometimes, these can be the best resources. Other times, solving one problem can lead to more questions. Then, sometimes, the problem is a computer issue. Your web hosting support technicians aren't going to offer you help with your computer.

For example, a friend brought me his computer. It wasn't working. He can't very well run his business with a broken computer. When he booted it up, this is what he saw:



From examining what little I had access to, I discovered he had tried to upgrade to Kubuntu 24.04 LTS before doing his updates for 22.04. This causes "Kernel Panic" in some Linux operating systems. I was able to reboot into a "safe mode" and choose a different Kernel. Then I did the 22.04 updates and rebooted.

The problem with Ubuntu kernel panic with kernel 6.8.0-45 generic was short lived. I googled it, and there were a number of people with the same issue.

I upgraded his computer to the newer 24.04 but by this time, Ubuntu had realized there was a problem, so now the OS was installing with the kernel 6.8.0-47. The upgrade was successful.

As, I said, this guy was a friend, so I didn't charge him for the help. Still, he showed up the next day with a 40oz. bottle of Rum for me. I think the point is, if you can offer value with your service, even if you're not the only person offering the service, then people will buy from you.

“If people like you, they'll listen to you, but if they trust you, they'll do business with you.” – Zig Ziglar

Many years ago I trained as an electronic technician, and I've got a few IT certificates from other courses I took. Plus I have over twenty years of being a web developer.

[unpinkpanther]

Steve, what would you recommend as the best way to keep spammers off this forum?

Don't know if you've noticed a recent increase in dubious spammy posts

Apart from having humans guard the forum 24/7 looking out for spammers, what other options would you suggest?

[Steve MacLellan]

Originally Posted by unpinkpanther

Apart from having humans guard the forum 24/7 looking out for spammers, what other options would you suggest?

I'm using Asgaros Forum for Wordpress on stevemaclellan.net, not PhpBB:
Asgaros Forum: https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/asgaros-forum/

However, the PhpBB website has a post to address spam issues:
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2284221

Since they wrote the software, and suggest a Q&A CAPTCHA -- this is probably the best choice. So if it were me, I'd give it a try.

[unpinkpanther]

Originally Posted by Steve MacLellan

I'm using Asgaros Forum for Wordpress on stevemaclellan.net, not PhpBB:
Asgaros Forum: https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/asgaros-forum/

However, the PhpBB website has a post to address spam issues:
https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2284221

Since they wrote the software, and suggest a Q&A CAPTCHA -- this is probably the best choice. So if it were me, I'd give it a try.

Thanks for sharing, Steve

Dr Dien, please how soon could you look into this? We need to save SOWPub from pirates...

[Dien Rice]

Hi Unpink (and Steve),

Thanks for your feedback...

This forum uses a customized version of vBulletin (not phpBB)... And we do use Q&A (though I need to update it manually from time to time)... Plus other things I don't like to divulge (so as not to tip off the spammers)...

If you see any spam messages here, you'll see the messages that get through are virtually useless to the spammer. There are no active links, and often brand names (which have spammed before) are "censored out" (replaced with asterisks, "*"), so no-one can read them or even know what they are...

Many spammers hire people at cheap rates to get through "captchas" and so on, so you are often actually dealing with people doing this (not machines)... Though AI (i.e. LLMs) are now getting better and better at getting through anything designed to distinguish machines from humans...

One thing I did (and do) use is blocking certain geographical regions. For example, many years ago we blocked China - and lo and behold, I would say about 80% of the board spam disappeared when we did that! This is much less effective now, because people can (and do) use CloudFlare to make their IP look like their geographical location is in the USA...

Hope that helps!

Best wishes,

Dien

Originally Posted by unpinkpanther

Thanks for sharing, Steve

Dr Dien, please how soon could you look into this? We need to save SOWPub from pirates...

[Dien Rice]

I think we've solved the spam problem... We've added a layer of moderation, so when someone registers, they can't post until their registration is approved...

(This won't affect anyone who is already registered. It only changes things when people first register...)

Someone has created a huge database of email addresses that do "forum spam"... and I've found most of the email addresses that spam here, are listed there! So it's not hard to check...

This is the forum spam site (in case it helps anyone)...

https://www.stopforumspam.com

Best wishes,

Dien