For the Attention of Ramses

[Splendiferous]

In the absence of a captain-y type, I elect to go down with the ship! Come on, you apes, do you want to live forever? Who's with me?!

<<tumbleweed rolls by>>

You ****ers

[damn righto]

Ramses has entered the Sixth Dimension.

[Splendiferous]

Hmmm ... Length, Breadth, Depth, Time ... something ... and something ...

[Seraph]

I...may...be....near....screaming point.

Somebody save us from the spam!!!!

[Splendiferous]

To re-iterate (just in case Ramses comes back, sees the thread and missses the first 2 pages) :

"Hullo Ramses,

I hope you read this on your next visit to these parts, as it is (in my not incredibly humble opinon ) rather a major issue.

I'm talking about our moderators. Don't get me wrong, the ones we have now are doing a fine job, to the best of their ability. When the latest spam onslaught sets foot in their particular forums, it's gunned down swiftly and surely.

But that's the problem itself. Many (perhaps most?) of the forums are now unmoderated because of mods who, for very good reasons I'm sure, are no longer able to be with us often enough to do any moderating. No blame lies with them, of course, the real world is very time-consuming and much more demanding than the virtual one. Anyone who would think otherwise would be being very unfair, it goes without saying (although I just said it anyway).

My point is this - in order to combat this latest wave of more militant spam, our moderator situation really does need to change.

• We could have a minimum of one moderator in every forum, if such a thing is possible or practical - even the Pilot's Mess, something which I have been against for some time but now see the wisdom of. If the more absent mods forums could be co-modded by less absent mods, perhaps?
• Maybe we need more mods, to mod forums currently unmodded (and there are a few of those). This would probably help significantly ease the workload created on curent mods by the above suggestion.
• Sorry, Ramses, but I'm going to use the S-word again ... maybe we could have Supermods? Ubermods? Godmods? (Catchy, but ego-inflating ) Seriously, though, enhanced moderator abilities would help immensely - banning I.P. addresses and s forth could help nip these spam waves in the bud before they get too serious. Is this possible, though? I don't know much about vBullitin, which is why I'm a Pilot and you're an Administrator

I realise I'm not saying anything new here - hell, I'm pretty much parroting a dozen similar threads in this forum - but I think it's something that needs to be emphasized. I'd be grateteful if other members could post in this thread to keep it floating above the spam, so that when Ramses returns it's noticeable.

Feel free to disagree, agree, argue, shrug indifferently - especially the mods, as this issue affects you guys the most. I don't want you to feel I'm advocating heaping tonnes of work on you guys "

[Splendiferous]

BUMPed. Again. Because you never know...

[Splendiferous]

BUMPED

Because Ramses is on! Hi Ramses!

[Optimus Prime]

You lie!! I don't believe it. Then again, he was probably overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of spam that he ordered the self destruct activated.

[Splendiferous]

Well, while he was here, I'm fairly certain he blockd an IP address or two ... er, I hope

[Ramses]

Greetings pilots,

You're right Optimus Prime, I've activated the ship's self-destruct mechanism. It will happen in 4 phases:

1. Temporarily turn off recruiting (done)
2. Vent out the air to clear out the spam infestation, keeping records in the process (in progress...)
3. Temporarily shut down the forums in preparation for a jump
4. Jump the ship to another server (same company) for better growth potential

All done within a few days. Will also try to find something better against spam; that latest batch was from China and Nigeria (no bots, just low-wage human drones). Maybe I'll have to code something myself, we'll see.

Yup Splend, I understand and totally agree with your grievances. After much delay, I'll be finishing and applying the new style and features to the site sometime this summer, so I'll be around to implement these much awaited forum-specific requests.

Ramses out.

[Seraph]

Thanks, finishing the site off would be nice, blocking spam bots even better. However we all know you can't be here all the time and we'd appreciate most a contingency mod structure to keep the place fresh & alive in your absence as Splend said (spammers out, 'new' film forums moving/creation etc).

I get you want to finish the project you started (re-fit), which is fab, but please don't leave us captainless again. We seem to loose a lot of members through it and sciflicks should be a bustling hive.



Shutting down forums? I'm not panicing, I'm not. Really I'm not. (People should start hiding the big red buttons now)

Ooooh I just remember pilot reviews

[Splendiferous]

Thanks very much, Ramses! It's good to see you back - with the latest spam wave, I was getting worried

<<crosses his fingers for mods with spam-removal and blocking capabilities>>

[Arcee]

hey ramses glad to see ya. hopefully we can eliminate the spammers. i havent been on for so long cause i was geeting sick of all the spam but im back now and it looks like right no time. Only a month to go before the Transformers movie comes out.
Autobots Transform and Rollout!
Arcee

[Sonny]

Ahh Thanks the Lord, Ramses has returned from long distant pastures.

There is light at the end of this spam-filled tunnel at long last just when my last vestiges of hope were fading.

Thanks for the update; looking forward to the jump into the next dimension

[Splendiferous]

We should be preparing - batten down the hatches! Seal all the airlocks! Put child-safety locks on all the cupboards!

<<straps self into a chair and prepares for the jump>>

What? It's not time yet? Aaaw ...



I was surprised to hear that it wasn't bots this this time, actually. I wonder how many wage-slave-drones there were dpoing this? Poor guys...