... will change. It is clear that we have intruders. And we are going to do something about it. Promised!

It will take some time. But we will inform you about any changes.

After you ban the intruders, give them to Ted to finish them off! ;D

Dear Freddy,

I'm not so sure they are intruders....  I picked three names at random and googled them and they all are posters on other fansites (DROD and Ambrosia).  Maybe they are really all real people?  Has anyone been out there advertising this site?  I looked on the DROD site and didn't find any new posts related to Midnight Mansion.

Cinder

Thx for your reply Cinder and to help thinking. I wish it was true. But as administrator I was able to see something (sorry:  :-X) that I really didn't like and that proved to me that something is seriously wrong.  :'( :'( >:( >:(

I hope I may tell some more in future about it.

And then I give them all to TED !

He's got a BIG dugeon on his little island, with a torture chamber! ;D

For our current serious and "other" members NOTHING CHANGES.

From the beginning of these boards, new members received a welcome-PM. That text changed. Here is what you get now, when you register:

We are very pleased that you made yourself a member of the Midnight Mansion Boards.

For security reasons we need to do an anti-spam and anti-robot double check. You are obliged to answer this personal message within 24 hours. Your answer needs to contain a message from at least 40 words. Or otherwise we are forced to remove you from the memberlist without any further warning.

It is not a matter of 39 or 41 words. ;) But I have the feeling that someone is busy with manual work. And I want to make him tired. Very, very tired.

EDIT: changed again on December the 30th, 2006, to its original !

I'm not sure that requiring new members to write messages with 40 words is the best approach... Can't we just have moderators delete accounts when they find trolls appear on the boards? Yes, it's more work for the moderators, but I'm not sure making it *harder* for real users to join is the best solution.

No problem, but when will I be sure that a member is a troll. From the long list I know for certain that there are at least 4 serious members among them: Scout, Fisch68, frost and aquaMat.

With pleasure I delete all the others ... :-/ Do you give me a go?

Freddy wrote on 31.12.2006 at 03:53:55:

No problem, but when will I be sure that a member is a troll. From the long list I know for certain that there are at least 4 serious members among them: Scout, Fisch68, frost and aquaMat. With pleasure I delete all the others ... :-/ Do you give me a go?

Not sure what to say. I think that the security measure of having to type in a security phrase from the picture when you create your account should eliminate robots from accessing the site, which leaves 3 other categories of people who join:

1) Members who will be active

2) Members who won't be active -- they just want to read posts and download mansions (although this is now also possible without an account)

3) People (real people) who are weird, and go through the joining process just to do strange stuff. Because they have too much time on their hands, and nothing better to do.

So #3 I figure you could delete their accounts, and their strange posts/threads, after you realize who they are. But if they keep re-joining, and it becomes a problem (and there's no way to blacklist their IP address or email so they can't join again), then perhaps you may need a different way of handling it. But otherwise that's the approach I'd take -- wait until someone makes it obvious they're a troll, and then delete them and their posts after they've made it obvious. That's why we have moderators, and we can bring more moderators on board if necessary.

Otherwise though, if you delete someone because, for instance, he doesn't respond to a private message you sent him, you may be deleting people from category #2 above -- people who created an account, but maybe log in only once every few weeks, and therefore they won't even see your private message until it's too late.

Just my opinion... do whatever you think is best though. Maybe discuss it with Brell off-line too.

You are right. As always. But ... please have a look at the copy of my email to Cinder. It possibly explains everything. And solves the whole problem.

I think we should try Vern's way first and see how it goes.

And I know even more now. See extract from an email that I received from Vern a few minutes ago.

Not only that, but I sent a message to the ActionSoft mailing list, which is over 300 members, about the site, and how it's a replacement for the old site. I then sent a follow-up email explaining that you need to join to access the forums, since previously that was the case. This would explain why we now have close to 75 members. Many of them are there simply to read and download mansions, not to post messages. So don't delete their accounts. ;-)

And then there are some of us who are just way too busy this time of year to keep up our "old" habit of posting....

Spiak