I want to apologize for the delays.

TRUSTAbyss

Dear Members:
Recently, we have been hit with a lot of spam (3,000+) to be exact, and I'm working hard to control it. I apologzie for the delays on the approval of posts. It is very time consuming to filter out the spam and keep the legitimate posts. The user that complained that their post hasn't been approved yet, should be approved now. Please check the ASP.NET forum if you're reading this. I will get with Aprelium this week to come up with a solution to all this spam. Again, I apologize and hope to clear this mess up soon.
Sincerely yours, Joshua H. (TRUSTAbyss)

Moxxnixx

Joshua, you're not alone in this. ;-)
I've had to clean out 3000+ spam messages a few times in the last couple months and it's getting tiresome.
Even when I use my little "trick" with the Web Developer Toolbar, it still takes me a loooong time to clean
things up. In fact, to give some people an idea of how quickly they can build up, I just had to clean out 300+
spams messages that came in just the last 24 hours!!!
I try my best to scan over the messages to see if there are any legitimate ones (I'm sure you do also) and
sometimes one or two might get overlooked. I sincerely hope that some people will understand that.
I really hope Aprelium will come up with a solution soon. The current methods aren't stopping the spam
from coming in, it's only keeping it from being seen by the general populous.
The horrible amount of spam we get on this forum is severely hindering legitimate users from getting the
quality support that we used to give on a speedy basis.

TRUSTAbyss

Anyone that needs help quicker, add me to your Windows Live Messenger and I will respond faster to your questions. I'm providing my service to you because I believe in this software so much that I'm willing to give my time to help others.

Axis

I just wanted to thank the people who are trying so hard to keep spam off the Aprelium Forum.
I was in a similar situation "watching over" a software site's php BB who's owner was too busy with his new job to take care of it. It was getting slammed by spam constantly. The final solution we had to take was to put in a simple page for the Forum with directions that this forum was password protected. Enter password a, username a . You can see this page here to see what I mean:
http://www.xav.com/forum.html
The downside, of course, was that external search engines could not search the forum and in Aprelium's case they might lose their google adds revenue (not sure how that would work.)
The upside is that it completely eliminates spam. There is no motivation for link hustlers and others when they have no external search engine listings. It even allowed guest posting without a problem.
It's not ideal but the internet has changed so much over the last ten years that almost every forum, guestbook, links page, etc. is plagued with this same problem.
Again, thanks to all those who have been trying to fight the spam bots and keep the board clean!
Regards,
Axis

Toasty

This is the problem with using free, open source forums. I, personally, feel phpBB is the worst solution possible for a board.
I would look into places like sec.org, and other security sites to see what was exploited, as adding more protection (like using ReCaptcha instead of phpBB's captcha) might be useless if they're able to get around it with some sort of exploit on the post page.

TRUSTAbyss

I just moved 10,000+ posts to the "Spam Bin" over a period of two days. This SPAM is really starting to piss me off!

admin

TRUSTAbyss wrote
I just moved 10,000+ posts to the "Spam Bin" over a period of two days. This SPAM is really starting to piss me off!

We've just implemented a system to better clean spam and make moderators life easier. It required a lot of work and understanding the internals of PhpBB source code (which we don't want to rate but it isn't the best organized and architectured code we've seen so far.)
The main problem is that no IP banning, captcha, or word based filtering has worked so far. Spammers seem to use now armies of low-payed people to enter overly protected forums and post their messages there. We're just raising the bar but dedicated spammers can still pay to be in.
Hopefully, the new system will help us revert back to a normal forum where the most important is the interaction between the forum members and Aprelium's staff.
By the way, we thank all the moderators for their help and their commitment to maintain a usable forum.

TRUSTAbyss

I did notice a decrease today. Hopefully, this new system will keep these evil spammers at bay.

AbyssUnderground

I've stopped cleaning up the spam because I simply don't have the time. This is actually the first time I've logged on in around a year. That just shows my lack of time. And the fact I have my own forum and sites to deal with hardens the problem too. So I apologise for not making an effort.

chromebuster

The problem here is a few things. one, there aren't enough staff here. That's the main thing. secondly, whoever said that this board software is the wrong thing to handle a board like this is absolutely right. Use something like either YAF (yet another forum.net), IPB (Invision power Board), or something else that has it's emphasis on spam protection and user access control. I won't say mojo portal since that'd be me being bias.

admin

chromebuster,
Changing the board software isn't going to magically prevent us from spam. Our forum is a good target for many spammers and they are willing to pay people to manually post here. That's what is making our life hard.
The situation is much better now as we've implemented many counter-measures that proved efficient but moderation and manual approval of new comers is still required.

loloyd

It's been a long time since I last visited this forum. And it has taken even a longer time since I last posted in this forum. By the way, the 2.7 beta looks juicy.
Anyway, I'd be willing to help in the forum moderation if Abyss admins trust me enough and they can always see my post history where I contributed (script-rewriting support for Drupal, feature wishlists, etc.) for my profile. I've been a long time Abyss X1 user but a longer time anti-spam combatant, passively and actively fighting spam in various forms since 1997. Kudos to Moxxnixx and TRUSTAbyss for dedicating their time and effort in keeping spam at bay. It's a war, and the battles can overcome even the best of generals. So I am stepping up to volunteer in the effort.
Please note that, if my offer is accepted and approved, I would only be moderating against spam and nothing else.
Thank you. And it's good to find out that there's a new beta.