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Post by graybeard on Jul 10, 2008 10:17:28 GMT -6
Can you do it, Michael? It's not the ads, but the spyware and other hazards and nuisances as well. Right now, this Forum wants to install Adobe Flash Player Installer, which I obviously don't need to use this Forum. It's for the benefit of advertisers. I pledge $100 to get it started, and will share whatever ongoing costs there are, if there are enough others who gain value from this Forum. I found it's real easy to send money with Papal (that's how my spell checker spelled it.) Here's an example of a Forum without ads, popups, Commie spam, etc: www.mtfca.com/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi?pg=topicsAnother: www.fordbarn.com/Any more volunteers? GB
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jul 10, 2008 11:52:36 GMT -6
Can you do it, Michael? It's not the ads, but the spyware and other hazards and nuisances as well. Right now, this Forum wants to install Adobe Flash Player Installer, which I obviously don't need to use this Forum. It's for the benefit of advertisers. Graybeard, Thanks for letting me know about this. My computer asks me to install the Adobe Flash Player occasionally. I wasn't aware it was coming from this forum. I completely forgot about sending money to make this forum ad-free. According to Pro-Boards, it's only around $7/month for the 1st 50,000 hits page views. I pledge $100 to get it started, and will share whatever ongoing costs there are, if there are enough others who gain value from this Forum. I found it's real easy to send money with Papal (that's how my spell checker spelled it.) I appreciate the offer on the donation. But let me see what I can do thru Proboards first. I can actually mail them a cashier's check or money order. If I can do that, I can keep my own identity anonymous. (PayPal requires a large amount of personally identifying information, while a money order/cashier's check requires none.) I can afford $7/month myself, if that's all it ends up costing. I don't want board members to have to give out any more personally identifying information than necessary. Again, "Papal" (Paypal) does require such information. And their security is not great. (My own Ebay/Paypal account has been compromised dozens of times, according to notices I've received from Ebay and Paypal.) Also, if I change the host itself, I don't want to lose members or visitors in the process (except for my "friends" from China.) If Proboards has a system for blocking entire groups of IP addresses, such as all IPs from China, I'd rather do it that way. Proboards does have some excellent posting features that are not available on most other forums. And once again, I could probably solve most of the spam problems, and maybe even the security problems, by making membership a requirement for posting. However, requiring membership for posting does have a downside. It would prevent posting by some frequent contributors, such as: "db", "Grapple", "rwc", "xtra", "nomad943", and "bluestocking". If anyone has a suggestion on how to circumvent this latter problem, let me know.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jul 10, 2008 14:18:35 GMT -6
I just now purchased the $7/month, No-Ads feature (via a Google Order) . We'll see how long it is before it takes effect.
I've also implemented a broad-based block of IP addresses, as per the "wild-card" IP block instructions from Proboards. I don't know for sure if it'll work, but it's worth a try.
If the wild-card ban does work, it'll block all IP addresses that have spammed this forum over the last 2-3 weeks, and all IP addresses that share the same 1st 3 digits. In other words, it should block all new variations of the spammers' IP addresses, since the block supposedly covers ALL IPs that share the same 1st 3 digits. I blocked 5 different 3-digit prefixes. (All of which seem to have originated in China.)
No members or quests share any of these 3-digit prefixes, so no members or guests should be blocked.
If any members or quests are blocked, let me know as soon as possible.
If this block works, I'll extend it to additional problematic IP addresses. If that works, it should eliminate almost all spamming.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jul 11, 2008 9:25:16 GMT -6
So far, it looks like the broad-based IP block has worked. I haven't seen any Chinese-origin spam over the last 24 hours.
Also, there are no more ads at the top of the page.
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Post by graybeard on Jul 11, 2008 12:16:42 GMT -6
Fantastic!
Thanks, thanks!
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Post by judes on Jul 11, 2008 17:43:42 GMT -6
Looks good, and if you decide you want to accept donations, let us know where to send them. This site contributes greatly to the dissemination of needed and vital information, and your posts are invaluable, so whatever it takes to keep it going I am all for.
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Jul 27, 2008 16:14:39 GMT -6
According to Pro-Boards, it's only around $7/month for the 1st 50,000 hits page views. The ads are back now, after only 17 days. Apparently, ProBoards must be claiming there have been over 50,000 page views in the last 17 days. I don't believe that for a second, since I have 2 different sitemeters that count also page views, and neither has ever shown more than 24,000 page views over any 30-day period. In fact, only rarely have either one shown more than 20,000 page views in 1 month. Furthermore, the average number of guests in 1 day shown on the home page is from 180-280. The midpoint would be 230. 17 days x 230 = 3,910 total visits 50,000 ÷ 3,910 = 12.8 page views per visit. 12.8 pages per visit is much higher than the average number of page views shown on either of my site meters. *According to 1 of my sitemeters, there were 9,135 page views between the start date of my ads free period (July 10,2008) and today. According to my other sitemeter, there were 8,756 page views from July 10 thru July 27. Again, Proboards seems to be implying that I have had over 50,000 page views from July 10 thru July 27. I think ProBoards is ripping me off on their alleged 50,000-page-view limit for 30 days. They're claiming over 50K page views when both other sitemeters are putting the number at under 10K.
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Post by agito on Jul 27, 2008 17:00:37 GMT -6
that's a bummer UnLC. The sadder part is that if you have to deal with the ads in the first place, you could be making the money for yourself rather than contributing to proboards profits.
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