Spambots

[Zeke]

Some of you have noticed the influx of spambots at these forums. Six of the last seven new members have been bots, and I'm pretty sure of another one from earlier this summer.

The problem: right now, I can't delete these "members." I can't edit anyone's member status, even my own. I've been careless in modding this forum, and I'm paying for it now in loss of functionality. What's probably needed is a fresh phpBB installation and a careful conversion of the database so we don't lose anything.

I intend to do exactly that -- I made the decision months ago, in fact. But I can't do it here. In Waterloo I'll have the free access I need for this job. You don't have much longer to wait: I'm leaving on Thursday and should be settled by next Wednesday. And when it's done, we'll have a clean slate here, without longstanding problems like the missing member titles and the invisible login screen text.

Until then, all I can do is ban the spambots from posting -- so please ignore them.