New Registration Procedures = Restricted Access during BETA

[Urgon]

Hi Everyone,

As near as I can tell, the flux of new user registrations with sexual related names, and links to porn blog sites did not indicate any compromise of the website security itself. We were not hacked.

Rather, the open registration that we have been enjoying allowed ANYONE to register & then post immediately. Even though I did not see any posts from these new porn spammer usernames (Perhaps the moderators already deleted them??), I locked down the registration process. Until I have a chance to evaluate this further, only the Ramblings forum will be open.

New Procedure:
Registering for a new account will send the board admin (me) and email, and they cannot log-in until I approve them.

If they are not logged-in, they cannot post anywhere. They can only read. I left the read permission 'public' so that friendly guilds can keep up with any of our events, or other interesting news.

Let me know if you have any questions or issues.

Thanks!

[Lilae]

thanks so much for taking such good care of us Urgon <3

[Urgon]

Happy to help!

BTW, I'm thinking that those signups were probably board spiders, which systematically search for PHPBB board sites, and then create new users and manufacture weblinks back to their commerce sites. Since they did not post, I assume their only value is that they show up with a link to their website, which may help their search listings and other advertising....

Mostly harmless....

However, I still have not deleted ALL of them.. as the only tool I have to delete users, requires 4 steps and 20 odd clicks per name. Very cumbersome and time consuming.....

I'll get to them all soon....

[Lilae]

wow that sucks

you would think it would be easier.

I wish I could help I would get rid of all the members with 0 posts.