This website should be shutdown, its frankly embarrassing to Surbiton locals
This website should be shutdown, its frankly embarrassing to Surbiton locals
Surbiton.com 1998 - 2024
This website should be shutdown, its frankly embarrassing to Surbiton locals
Comments
you should surely just ban anon comments and require registration. Although of course that would remove valuable comments such as this ;)!
You've just exemplified the pros and cons.
As much as we'd prefer not to draw attention to this topic again, we feel we need to address some of the points raised.
The problem postings were submitted by registered users. In this case, a number of bogus users had registered, probably autonomously, and successfully authenticated themselves with valid email addresses. These automated robots are becoming more sophisticated as the war against spam continues to escalate.
Since the incident, we've added a CAPTCHA device on the registration form, but inevitably this has already been overcome and we're having to look into alternatives. We're already seeing registrations using random letter usernames with Russian (@mail.ru) email addresses which are obviously defeating the current filtering process. We are now blocking the site from users of this address.
The Akismet counter-measure we're currently using on Surbiton.com is very good, but not infallible and still requires a degree of manual intervention.
Combating spam is an ongoing problem for all sites that allow postings from external users and can take a fair proportion of the website's resources to keep in check. Due to the indiscriminate nature of these attacks, even a low traffic site such as Surbiton.com are under constant attack. Once again, we'd like to ask our users for help in the matter. If anyone would like to apply to become a spam inspector or moderator please contact us via the Feedback page. All that's involved is simply flagging suspect postings by clicking a link at the bottom of the message.
People of limited intelligence and vocabulary often resort to abusive language,pity really as they often have a good point but just cannot express it.
True,anonymous,but I cannot let someone who is trying and has made corrections to be vilified by someone who has no constructive suggestions as to what content should be on the site.The quality of this type of site is driven by the quality of comment and you cannot blame the site manager for that.
I am not part of the admin and you may see my observations on other local blogs where if criticism is due I will dish it out.
I think we should point out that an Anonymous users, perhaps but not necessarily the same as earlier in the thread, posted a personally abusive reply to mojogit containing profanities.
Luckily we were able to catch the comment before it was published on the site.
Well done you came clean admitted fault,rectified it....RESPECT!
mojogit, it doesn't take much to please you, or are you the admin here in disguise?
Check the filth on the TESCO debate
Now I'm embarrassed.
Apologies to anyone who witnessed this spam attack. We have now removed the offending posts. Like I said, I was out of the country and could only access the site briefly by phone and was over-reliant on the usually excellent Akismet spam filter. We are currently receiving around 30 spam comments a day, and even more spam emails, therefore if anyone is willing to offer help moderating the comments please contact us using the feedback link at the top of the page.
Once again we apologise to our users.
I'm sorry you feel this way nelson. Admittedly there's not been much Surbiton news to publish over the past month, and I've had limited access to approve unregisted comments as I've been out of the country.
What in particular do you find embarrasing?
Agreed, badly managed