I've had to ban "Gmail"

Some partial backups of posts from the past (Feb, 2004)
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Dan Rowden
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I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Dan Rowden »

To all members,

Due to the fact that 95% of spam is coming from gmail users, I've had to ban that email service from the board. If you are a current member using it and find yourself effected by this move, please re-register using a different email address.

Sorry for any inconvenience.


Dan Rowden
Animus
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Animus »

I use gmail, but I can still log in, so does it only affect notifications? I guess. I don't really use them anyway.
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guest_of_logic
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by guest_of_logic »

You can in any case change your registered email address by clicking on "User Control Panel", then "Profile" and then "Edit account settings", and filling in the form.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Dan Rowden »

Most spammers are avoiding effort.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Dan Rowden »

Animus wrote:I use gmail, but I can still log in, so does it only affect notifications? I guess. I don't really use them anyway.
I don't know. I would have assumed it would have effected you, but maybe I have no idea what I'm doing.
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guest_of_logic
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by guest_of_logic »

Dan Rowden wrote:Most spammers are avoiding effort.
Oh, I was directing that to Animus and those like him who still want to receive notifications - e.g. when someone sends them a PM - not spammers!
Animus
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Animus »

Dan Rowden wrote:
Animus wrote:I use gmail, but I can still log in, so does it only affect notifications? I guess. I don't really use them anyway.
I don't know. I would have assumed it would have effected you, but maybe I have no idea what I'm doing.
Hmmm. Someone has suggested here that if you ban @gmail.com then I should still remain a member but be unable to register anew with a gmail account or change my existing email address to gmail.com, but I have tried this and had no problems saving my gmail account in the phpBB account settings.

Someone else has suggested that you can add a registration question "Are you a bot?" to the registration process that would block spam-bots, but it'd still leave the door open to manual spammers. At any rate, the @gmail.com block should work too.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Dan Rowden »

Sadly, the majority of modern spammers, at least to places like this, are manual and not bots. Lots of unscrupulous - or maybe just desperate - people in the world, it seems.
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Anders Schlander
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Anders Schlander »

I use gmail aswell, any chance that the user name can be preserved and switched to the new account, if neccesary?

Asia houses many of the people who spam advertisements. They are also very active in the gaming industry, where they sell gaming currency etc.

It must be said, there is alot of people who can't afford not to do many of these tasks.

Playing video games is largely considered quite benign, but when faced with the reality that people play them as a job just to feed their family, it's really quite obvious that the world is disfunctional. The fact that jobs exist to perpetuate stuff like needing video game posessions, or useless clothes etc. They 'only' exist because humans desire useless things. humans keep wanting things. With a greedy and selfish pupolation, with a worldwide monetary exchange system, some people are going to be screwed over, and in the mad race for insatiable fulfillment, these people latch on hoping to provide services to stay onboard, lest they drown in the sea of human exertion.
everything is really backwards. And asia is feeling it the worst because of the amount of people who are rushing to get a glimpse of modern life nowadays.

Ofcourse, i doubt most people even realize the problem, because they are busy with their own ego.
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Dan Rowden
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Dan Rowden »

It seems as though the ban on gmail doesn't work retrospectively, as y'all are posting ok.
Animus
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Animus »

What are your settings like? Did you ban "gmail.com" or "@gmail.com" or something else?
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Dan Rowden
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Dan Rowden »

I banned *@gmail.com

You need the * wildcard. That's the format I've used to ban previous email addresses and it seemes to have worked.
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Anders Schlander
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Anders Schlander »

hmm. fair enough
Animus
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Animus »

Cool
cousinbasil
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by cousinbasil »

Dan Rowden wrote:I don't know. I would have assumed it would have effected you, but maybe I have no idea what I'm doing.
should read: "...would have affected you,..."
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Dan Rowden
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Dan Rowden »

Your correction has had the effect of affecting me.
Dragonspirit
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Re: I've had to ban "Gmail"

Post by Dragonspirit »

If you must change to a new email provider, try Fastmail... It has been my friend for years... None of the thht in Fastmail...
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