First the Preview Button - and now Banned!!

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hello All

I don't know if the vet was playing with the hamsters in the wheel but I just had the disturbing event of being Banned from the Pendraken website.

I was slurping around in my usual fashion when I started getting screens that said 'An Error has Occurred!' in the header, announcing I was banned from using the forum and not allowing me to log-on. Screen cap below. It seems to have cleared up now. It would now let me log on (after first rejecting my PC entered password). Very unusual and frightening, I've started doing a AV and Malware scan just in case  .

Anybody else have this happen?

Edit: When I tried to post this message I got

"Warning!
Sorry, you cannot post new topics in this board.
Please login below or register an account with Pendraken Miniatures Forum."

and then

" The following error or errors occurred while posting this message:
Your session timed out while posting. Please try to re-submit your message.
No subject was filled in.
The message body was left empty. "

This my second attempt at this message.

Edit 2

Been playing around (who said that I'm AR) and it seems to be the forum reacting to a particular IP identity in Anonymox in Firefox, UK5f - 146.185.31.221. Obviously somebody used this IP to do something naughty in the past


Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[getagrip]

 

Serves you right for being grumpy 

If you get banned though,  Lord help the rest of us

[Leon]

That's an interesting one, I'll have to mention that to Matt and see what's caused it.  It could be the IP, as we do have a list of previously banned IP's used by spammers, but it would be a bit of a coincidence for you to have the same address as one of them. 

Are you sure you've never sold Viagra or Ugg boots?!   

[getagrip]

That's an interesting one, I'll have to mention that to Matt and see what's caused it.  It could be the IP, as we do have a list of previously banned IP's used by spammers, but it would be a bit of a coincidence for you to have the same address as one of them. 

Are you sure you've never sold Viagra or Ugg boots?!   

Is that going to be a "standard " forum question cos, if it is, er...

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hello Leon

Are you sure you've never sold Viagra or Ugg boots?!   

Well, yes I did but the Viagra + Ugg Boots package was not a successful marketing strategy. Even snappy slogans like "With our package only the pills will be blue! Your feet are snug and warm!!" made no impact on sales  .

(Good Lord, what have I unleashed...... )

AnonymoX is a Firefox anonymous web browsing tool that loads a fake IP into the browser, UK5f - 146.185.31.221 is one of those fake IPs. So nowadays banning IPs is only able to stop the dumb spammers, the smart ones will just switch to a new fake IP. AnonymoX can also be set to delete cookies from a web site and receive a new one. I know this all seems excessive but I tend to err on the side of caution in regard to security.

Now can I interest you in a our special, never to be repeated, but wait there's more, buy one now and get another free, St Moritz Après-ski Viagra and Ugg boot pack  .

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[paulr]

Perhaps the forum detected you were on TMP as well and was 'protecting' the rest of us

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Leon - just don't let him back in......

You could try rejoining with another email address......not from the same provider.

IanS

[GrumpyOldMan]

Leon - just don't let him back in......

It's too late, I'm back   

You could try rejoining with another email address......not from the same provider.

IanS

Actually I could give lessons to some of these spammers on how to join with a false IP and a throwaway email address (only lasts for 60 minutes)  , but let's face it when you're a spammer and the scum of the earth  , nobody expects you to be bright as well .

(Sometime soon I'm going to learn to stop pressing the Preview button and expecting something to happen - "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein)

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

[Leon]

(Sometime soon I'm going to learn to stop pressing the Preview button and expecting something to happen - "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein)

There's still no update on that I'm afraid, we're still waiting on the upgrade from the people who make the forum software.  It's affecting a lot of the forums using this software, so you'd think it would be reasonably high up the priority list... 

[cbr3d.com]

There's still no update on that I'm afraid, we're still waiting on the upgrade from the people who make the forum software.  It's affecting a lot of the forums using this software, so you'd think it would be reasonably high up the priority list... 

Leon - that is the flaw in your argument, you used logic when thinking about programmers! 

[Leon]

Leon - that is the flaw in your argument, you used logic when thinking about programmers! 

Yeah... 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Hello

There's still no update on that I'm afraid, we're still waiting on the upgrade from the people who make the forum software.  It's affecting a lot of the forums using this software, so you'd think it would be reasonably high up the priority list... 

Well, there's the mistake. From my experience herding cats managing programmers, the thing to do would have been to tell them that this is a difficult problem but that, in the end, it is of small consequence. This would have ensured that they would expend 95% of their efforts on it, and, wonders of wonders, even work cooperatively  .

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan
(Preview button still not working, still haven't learnt not to push the button )

[Vamboozle]

Hello

Well, there's the mistake. From my experience herding cats managing programmers, the thing to do would have been to tell them that this is a difficult problem but that, in the end, it is of small consequence. This would have ensured that they would expend 95% of their efforts on it, and, wonders of wonders, even work cooperatively  .

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan
(Preview button still not working, still haven't learnt not to push the button )

Agree with all of that - alternatively just tell them there's a doughnut in it. That usually works in my experience 

[paulr]

Another, possible, bug you might like to take up with them Leon

In the "Recent Unread Topics" there are a couple of "MARK AS READ" buttons, these used to mark any unread topics on the page as read but leave any others as unread. Very useful for a few threads that you don't want to read at work or on a crowded train. You could then click on "Click here to try all unread topics".

It now appears that it marks all unread as read  I know I hadn't read a number of topics but don't know which ones 

PS Preview sometimes works for me, but only sometimes

[Leon]

In the "Recent Unread Topics" there are a couple of "MARK AS READ" buttons, these used to mark any unread topics on the page as read but leave any others as unread. Very useful for a few threads that you don't want to read at work or on a crowded train. You could then click on "Click here to try all unread topics".

It now appears that it marks all unread as read  I know I hadn't read a number of topics but don't know which ones 

Thanks for the feedback, it's always done that for me though?  I always keep the requests/votes and also some queries, ready to come back to later, so I use that feature quite a bit.  I made the mistake about a year ago of clicking the 'Mark As Read' button by accident and lost all of them.  Luckily I'd just finished totting up votes, so it wasn't too bad.

When you say it '...used to mark any unread topics as read...' did you have little check buttons next to the topics to do that?  I've never had any way of selecting'/choosing the threads to then perform an action on them?