Spambot Cleanup
Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2018 10:03 pm
Hi All!
We've been under siege by spambots lately. The problem with these things is they sometimes register and stay inactive for months before posting their nonsense. I'm constantly shifting the anti-spambot countermeasures to slow down registrations, but they still add up over time. I've just performed a cleanup by pruning silent accounts (no posts) with the following rules:
1. Any accounts that registered in 2018 with 0 posts have been deactivated. I apologise for any legitimate lurkers caught up in this, but it's hard to tell who is an isn't a spambot with 0 posts to their name. I can reactivate your account if you send me an email telling me your account name. These accounts will be purged sometime next year.
2. Any accounts prior to 2018 with 0 posts have been deleted. Most of these seemed inactive anyway and had not even logged in for some time.
I encourage new users to at least make a single hello post to The Big Hello Thread. Then there's no danger of being caught up with future spambot cleanups. I do this about once a year, but this year was a record cleanup.
I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused to legitimate users with 0 posts caught up in this cleanup.
We've been under siege by spambots lately. The problem with these things is they sometimes register and stay inactive for months before posting their nonsense. I'm constantly shifting the anti-spambot countermeasures to slow down registrations, but they still add up over time. I've just performed a cleanup by pruning silent accounts (no posts) with the following rules:
1. Any accounts that registered in 2018 with 0 posts have been deactivated. I apologise for any legitimate lurkers caught up in this, but it's hard to tell who is an isn't a spambot with 0 posts to their name. I can reactivate your account if you send me an email telling me your account name. These accounts will be purged sometime next year.
2. Any accounts prior to 2018 with 0 posts have been deleted. Most of these seemed inactive anyway and had not even logged in for some time.
I encourage new users to at least make a single hello post to The Big Hello Thread. Then there's no danger of being caught up with future spambot cleanups. I do this about once a year, but this year was a record cleanup.
I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused to legitimate users with 0 posts caught up in this cleanup.