OkcTalk hacked?

[Pete]

The number of people registering is a queue of potential new users who are awaiting approval. Due to an incredible amount of spam, we get about 100 attempts to register a day and we have to go through each one to determine if they are legit. It's a pain in the neck, as about 98% are just spammers from Asia and Eastern Europe. Have to check each IP address for origin, etc.

Even though it's laborious, I hope people recognize we've done a good job of keeping this site relatively spam-free. As we continue to grow and attract attention, this will be an increasing challenge.


As far as the Like | Share function on non-wiki threads, thanks for the reminder. I just sent a follow-up email to our hosting company. To fix it, I'm afraid we'll have to do a total reinstall of the software which was something we were hoping to avoid.

[Plutonic Panda]

I see, thanks again for everything you do! Another big thanks for keeping the site safe! That's crazy though how many people are trying to spam. Is there a reason for this? What do they gain? I wonder if Vbulletin has or is doing anything to combat this.

[Pete]

vB has filters you can employ but of course, spammers/hackers are very resourceful.

It's the price of popularity! Our traffic is now significant enough to attract those that want to use it for their benefit.

Some slip through, which is why we require the first three posts to be moderated, and in that way we catch most everything else.

[Plutonic Panda]

I'm amazed at all the features vB has. The way to view posts and all. Just excellent!

Is most of the traffic local or is the foreign traffic really beginning to pick up? It would be really cool to see people from out-of-town moving here to use this site as resource to see all the things OKC has to offer and where this awesome city is headed! Plus, it's amazing to see the wealth knowledge that the members of OkcTalk have, I'm sure anyone would be impressed to see the responses.

I know I had my post deleted and was threatened to be banned on Skyscraper Page after I put up a link to this site responding to someone who was moving here and wanted to know what is was like. I told her that she should to OkcTalk and she would get a much better answer and could look around to at all the cool new housing in downtown. Don't know if she got the link or not though. :/

[bluedogok]

I hosted a site for the Austin RAT Pack (Triumph motorcycle group), far fewer members than a site like this and we would routinely get 60-100 spammer attempts a day through the filters. I ended up terminating it and migrating the group to Facebook before I moved to Denver. The spammer attempts were even worse when we started it as a Yahoo Group before we moved to a forum.

[Pete]

About six months ago I installed Google Analytics on the site and it provides very detailed information about where people are located, what they visit on the site, how long they stay, etc.

98% come from the U.S.

58% of those come from Oklahoma; which means 42% come from other states.


One of the more interesting things about our site is that visitors average well over 7 minutes every time they visit, which is a very long time in the Internet world.

[kevinpate]

I read slow to begin with, and sometimes have other things going on as well. I can be on a single thread for well over seven minutes.

I moderate a few Scouting related discussion groups. Our moderation period lasts longer than 3 posts, or else we would have more spam (yahoo spammers are a somewhat patient bunch it seems) but there are enough dinos helping this old fossil that posts which should go through do not linger long in the que.

For the most part, When we get spam it is typically after a non-moderated member had their account hacked. We clean up the board, slip the account back to moderated status, and go forward.

Some weeks are more hectic than others, but few are horrid.

[Plutonic Panda]

The like button works!! Hooray!! haha

[venture]

The like button works!! Hooray!! haha

I was just going to post that.

[Pete]

Yes, it took a lot of work but the Likes are back!!

Keep in mind that the option only shows on non-wiki forums (which are the large majority).


Thanks for your patience while we figured this out.

[HangryHippo]

Pete, I have two questions.

1) I don't know if it's easily doable, but can we get a "Mark Forums Read" button in the mobile layout of the site?

2) Is there any way to get the little picture icons on the left side of the main page of the mobile layout fixed to where they show up if there are new posts in that section? They don't show up at all now and I can never tell on my phone which subforums have new material. Does that make sense?

I don't know if these two things are easily done/fixed, but I know I'd be most appreciative if they were. Based on my limited knowledge of vbulletin, it shouldn't be too terribly difficult. Thoughts?

[Pete]

Why do you use the mobile layout?

The basic design works perfectly on my iPad and iPhone. We haven't spent much time on the mobile templates for that reason.

[HangryHippo]

Why do you use the mobile layout?

The basic design works perfectly on my iPad and iPhone. We haven't spent much time on the mobile templates for that reason.

Haha, okay then. I use the basic layout on my computer (obviously) and on my iPad. However, I can't see the basic layout very well or navigate it at all on my iPhone. So, on that device, I stick to the mobile layout.

[Pete]

I can tell you that we've chosen to focus our efforts on the basic layout because it also tends to work very well for mobile users.

Also, this site is supported by advertising and we don't want to encourage use that circumvents this.

I've considered removing the mobile option altogether, and still might. I honestly didn't think many people were using it.

[HangryHippo]

And that's fine. I didn't realize how few people use the mobile layout. I'm certainly not trying to circumvent the ad support, but the mobile layout is just SO much easier to read and navigate. I assume you'll let me (maybe others like me) that you'll be removing it if/when you do?

[Pete]

Absolutely no worries, just trying to explain why/where we put our focus.

No immediate plans to remove the mobile option, especially if some find it helpful.

[HangryHippo]

Absolutely no worries, just trying to explain why/where we put our focus.

No immediate plans to remove the mobile option, especially if some find it helpful.

Sounds great. Thanks for the responses.

[BlackmoreRulz]

A query from moi.....instead of a "Top" button at the end of a thread, can we get a "Go" button that goes back to the top of the forum that the thread is in?

[HangryHippo]

Pete, here's another query regarding the full site. Is there any way in the wiki forums to get the "view first unread" lifted back to the top of the page in the urban development forum? Or do the wiki pages not allow that?

[Praedura]

Problemas con el servidor de hoy?

Site seems to be overloading at times...

[Pete]

We had our first Distributed Denial of Service (DDos) attack which we have dispatched.

Had to move the server to another IP address, so a few glitches until we could remap the DNS.


Price of popularity! As the site continues to grow, we attract more attention, both good and bad.

[Praedura]

Bummer! But given that's what happened, you guys got it back up quite quickly. Good job.