Zero Post Members To Be ...

[old corps]

Confusous say one that jump gun, get shot in a.s.s.

[drsawbones]

or shoots self in foot, me thinks.

Code being what it is...our codebase is like having a gameboy advanced when the DS is out.

The phpbb community is working hard on a stable release of the latest gizmos they've built into this thing...v3.0 is at RC3 now, but since it's not a stable version, there's no upgrade package available for v2.0+ users like ourselves.

Unfortunately, in order to get from point A to point B it could mean building an entire new server just to put the new release on until it's stable. Of course, one could take a leap of faith and just wipe this forum out and replace it with v3.0, but that would mean a min. of 2 weeks work painting new graphics to fit all the new templates, and then trying to merge the old database into the new format and praying that the manual upgrade was successful. Without being a programmer, I think most can tell already by this rant, that is very risky buisness.

With that said. Doc has been trying to piece together codes for mods for this older board version, using features and codes that are already incorporated into the new. Basically, what it's coming down to is the lesser of 2 evils...

Spammers and hackers can register and do all sorts of nasty things purely by having access to the registration and other features you can gain by being registered. So, since December 2006 the admins and moderators here have to stand with finger in the dyke to hold the flooding back.

In the meantime...doing things like restricting certain features until you are a "proven" user...sometimes means doing things like making zero posts users go away, hide, or even banned in some cases. [ie spam accounts that haven't been preened].

By leaving nearly 200 zero posts active in our database here....probability dictates that if the ones that have been trying to attack us, break in, and bring this board down...could be lurking in those zero posts user members.

It's a fine line we walk trying to have fun and use lots of neat features, and yet keep features that hackers and spammers love to use
available for fun without them getting in.

The compromise in this situation is to simply hide them at this point in time.

Doc
Vulcan Cavedweller

[DJ Wings]

phpBB is like any other program in that they issue security updates for v2.0 every once in a while. Have you updated to any of them? They could have major security patches... Oh, hey, there's my Ubuntu Update Notifier. It says I've got 10 updates waiting for my go-ahead. What do you think that means?

[CB]

Zero posters will be on the member list once they post. So we don't lose them. We also now have the ability to search ip's and make sure we don't have alias here. Members should have but one name they are posting with. I already see when someone is busting on me while under alias. He is in fact busted.

[Tinkerbell]

yup.. i got busted my dazzy. and u sry.