Hi guys,

Wanted to let you know that I'm thinking about going back to using Cloudflare server caching.  If you remember, we had this enabled earlier this year but it added a small delay to the commands and clicks.  It wasn't a bad delay but directly connecting the site was faster.  Since we went back to the direct connect we've been seeing a lot more hits from hackers and fake accounts. 

I believe the reason is I can't easily block entire countries like China, Russia, India, and Nigeria (as an example).  With Cloudflare, I can block these countries entirely and it will help us avoid these fake accounts.  This is an unfortunate part of the Internet and we need to accommodate and protect ourselves.  Frankly I don't see why people spend time doing this but they do.

To really protect ourselves, the best way to do it is by charging a small fee for people to register.  I've always promoted this site will be a free for everyone.  But, we may want to take a look at requiring a fee before people can post messages or interact in our classifieds system.  This will absolutely help against hackers and spam because this extra layer of protection through the purchase process and they just won't do it.  I won't push for this until we have a bigger discussion around it.

For now, I am seriously thinking about activating the Cloudflare service this weekend.  Let me know if you have any concerns.

Mike

1 hour ago, Mike said:

Hi guys,

Wanted to let you know that I'm thinking about going back to using Cloudflare server caching.  If you remember, we had this enabled earlier this year but it added a small delay to the commands and clicks.  It wasn't a bad delay but directly connecting the site was faster.  Since we went back to the direct connect we've been seeing a lot more hits from hackers and fake accounts. 

I believe the reason is I can't easily block entire countries like China, Russia, India, and Nigeria (as an example).  With Cloudflare, I can block these countries entirely and it will help us avoid these fake accounts.  This is an unfortunate part of the Internet and we need to accommodate and protect ourselves.  Frankly I don't see why people spend time doing this but they do.

To really protect ourselves, the best way to do it is by charging a small fee for people to register.  I've always promoted this site will be a free for everyone.  But, we may want to take a look at requiring a fee before people can post messages or interact in our classifieds system.  This will absolutely help against hackers and spam because this extra layer of protection through the purchase process and they just won't do it.  I won't push for this until we have a bigger discussion around it.

For now, I am seriously thinking about activating the Cloudflare service this weekend.  Let me know if you have any concerns.

Mike

A small fee?

So how much are you thinking Mike?

16 minutes ago, Racer X said:

A small fee?

So how much are you thinking Mike?

Considering many people support (or have supported) this site financially, I don't think that asking for a modest amount, like $10 or so, is too big of a price for entry. It would probably keep out spammers, scammers, and other bottom feeders.

The downside is that it could do to this site what it did for Craigslist. I see that car ads have all but dried up. Unfortunately FB marketplace seems to be the new selling spot for the lower end on the internets right now.

This thread reminded me to re-up my subscription / contribution to the site.

I belong to a couple of other sites like this, different topics, but similar format.  To get on to those sites, post, or even look at pictures, I had to apply and get approved.  That might be a huge hassle for moderators, though.  For the entertainment value I get from this site, entertainment value alone, a subscription is well worth it.

It's purely just an idea at this point so I've got no idea what is a fair price would be.  Browsing the site will always be free, but was thinking about the fee only to post messages and interact with other members.  Our biggest issues at the moment seems to be related to classifieds and shitty spam bots that somehow get into the forums.  Right now there's no real checks to make sure a person is legit, other than our initial sign up form.  A verification procedure such as a small transaction would essentially prevent scammers from getting in.

On the other hand, going to a fee membership could have a downside of pushing people away (which we don't want, ofc).  To get around that issue I guess we could make a few forums free-for-use but that may be hard to manage.  let me know if you have any ideas

For now I'll try to push the Cloudflare caching this weekend and we can see if it improves.

28 minutes ago, 26th-Z said:

 That might be a huge hassle for moderators, though.  

Moderators?

This forum has moderators?

Hmmmm…..

I’ve looked around before, and can’t find a listing of moderators.

 

 

It's a slow hot afternoon in the desert, so allow me to share my experience in moderating three forums for decades.  

Everyone who joins is moderated on their first posting.  If the first post is benign, the post is approved and they're switched to unmoderated.  All easy to manage.  If they later go outside the lines, they're switched back to moderated and ignored.

How many nuisance posts come in during a day, week, or month? 

 

46 minutes ago, Racer X said:

Moderators?

This forum has moderators?

Hmmmm…..

I’ve looked around before, and can’t find a listing of moderators.

Officially myself and Bryan have been doing most of the moderation when complaints are filed.  But most of the time you guys have been great at watching for bogus posts and report them to us.  We then take action by flagging the user as a spammer and removing their messages.  

 

38 minutes ago, psdenno said:

It's a slow hot afternoon in the desert, so allow me to share my experience in moderating three forums for decades.  

Everyone who joins is moderated on their first posting.  If the first post is benign, the post is approved and they're switched to unmoderated.  All easy to manage.  If they later go outside the lines, they're switched back to moderated and ignored.

How many nuisance posts come in during a day, week, or month? 

Yeah this is also a feature I can enable (first post moderation) but truthfully we've been doing a good job of removing spammers pretty quick as a group.  (see above reply)  The system already has a decent way to apply rankings to individuals and they slowly get more permissions as they post real messages.  For instance, new users aren't allowed to post in some forums and they are limited to just a few posts per day.  As they increase their participation they are allowed more posts and additional forum access.  This is already in place.  As far as forum spam, it's been pretty good but we still see 10-20 a month get through.  I'm not so worried about the public forums honestly. 

I'm more worried about the private conversations and classified transactions as I've been seeing more complaints in those areas.  Scammers are now trying to send people PM's and directly message our members without a peep in our forums.  I may be able to circumvent this by requiring a certain level before they can use the classifieds...  I'll have to take a look to see what kind of protection we have for that module.

Cloudflare caching will help out a lot because I can block all the countries that have known scammers (and little to no Z enthusiasts).

Hey buddy.

1 minute ago, Captain Obvious said:

Hey buddy.

SPAMMER! @Mike @bpilati Nuke him!

Ok, the proxy has been activated.  Let me know if you guys see anything behaving strange on the site.