Goodbye forums….
Site News January 11th, 2007
The spam has become intolerable, and since no one has the time to patrol and moderate them, I’m taking down the forums. I’m open to discussing putting up new ones if someone wants to run them.
Shadowdance
An exploration of alternative spirituality and fringe culture
January 11th, 2007 at 11:24 am
What type of forum software were you running? I confess I’ve never been to the forums, but I used to have HUGE spam problems with the phpBB forums on my Wild Ideas site.
Then I found a plug-in called Textual Confirmation which required new registrants to answer a question I specified before it would let them register. Result: no more spam. And I mean literally, NONE. The plug-in notifies me when spammers TRY to register, and some days I get as many as 50 of those notifications, but not a single spammer has actually gotten through to the forums since I installed that plug-in.
The spammers can’t code their bots to get around something like this because the question(s) and required answers are going to be different on every site that uses it. Seriously, it’s a godsend.
it’s also free as long as you’re Ok with it sending copies of the notifications to its creators to help them with development. You can download it from http://bbantispam.com/tc/
I realize this comes a little late given that you’ve already taken down the forums. :-/ But I thought I’d mention it in case you were using phpBB and wanted to give it another try at some point…
January 11th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Aw…I don’t want to see the forums go totally away, as I was enjoying the convos (especially since the HK forums have limited their focus).
I’m not a forum expert, but I’ve been learning phpBB from another site, and could try using the plug-in Miss Lynx refers to, if people want the forums back as much as I do. I spend most of my day on the computer so, save for a few brief vacation periods, I’m pretty much available to moderate the boards.
January 11th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
if i had enough time i would gladly moderate the forums, but, sadly, i cannot take the brunt of the load. if i had some help that would be wonderful, but i cannot do it alone, i saw how much spam there was.
CATHRAC
January 13th, 2007 at 2:39 am
One of the reasons we moved & trimmed down the topics on the HK forums boiled down to spam. When my mods told me how much time each day was spent patrolling for spambots, I was apalled. I’m personally not sure how much I like the way we limited topics on those forums as well, but the House is a democracy, so the majority ruled. I wouldn’t mind forums here for a wider discussion, but realistically, neither Chris nor I have the time. We can barely find time for the podcast — though rest assured we’ll keep it alive.
–M
January 16th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
I did offer to patrol the spam, but I can understand why you guys chose this. It makes sense. There did not seem to be heavy usage of the forums in comparison to the download numbers. On the other hand, the amount of spam could have been the issue with forum usage numbers.
I can’t really make a recommendation either way, but either way I’m satisfied with just having the podcasts at least. I always enjoy them and hearing you guys pick each others’ (and sometimes others’) brains.
Blessings,
Ora
January 16th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Michelle, I wasn’t criticizing the HK decision…I support the more streamlined forums, as I used to get overwhelmed trying to check ALL the topics. Just commenting that as the HK forums are a more specialized area of focus, I valued the Shadowdance forums for connecting with intelligent people about magic and other aspects of fringe culture.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
I was using phpBB, and yeah…it sucked. I’ll see what other options are open to us.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I think you are great I do not know what to write but i do my best I think the web site is cool and that michelle belangers books are the greatest
January 31st, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I just had a random idea, we could have an IRC channel
just putting the idea out.
Ephraim
February 2nd, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I would note that part of the problem with the forums may have been a fault in the registration and/or login modules. I’m sure I’m not the only person who had trouble logging in or leaving replies.
It’s hard to grow when the things that let you grow aren’t working right.
In any case, I don’t have as much time online as I used to, but I’d be happy to help moderate if forums re-appeared around here.
February 3rd, 2007 at 12:24 pm
come to the witches world wide message board there is all kinds of interesting topics the
re I make up all kinds of interisting topics about vampires and witches most of them are silly post but it gets the demons going and that is a lot of fun since i have been playing with the Ouiji board sence i was 7 years old and talking about vampires and witches since I was in catholic school
it this is the web site http://witche.meetup.com/ there is also a vampire message board but is is occupied by insulting people
February 10th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Chris & Michelle, I sent an email to the feedback address regarding the forums. Dunno if it made it through spam filters or not but in the email I suggested this forum software:
http://www.simplemachines.org/ — SMF is a lot tighter than phpBB and we get no spammers on the community site I frequent which uses this software.
HTH
Patrick
May 28th, 2007 at 2:44 am
im willing to run it. and ill remove the spam as well. im online twelve hours a day runningmy websites aand then i rush off to work. and like i stated. im willing to donatemy time to you people
June 12th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I would like to volunteer in moderating your site if you like.
Bright Blessings,
Pan.