The Future

Announcements about the forum as well as comments, questions, ideas for the forum or the website in general.
User avatar
bahua
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 10916
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2003 7:39 pm
Location: Out of Town
Contact:

Re: The Future

Post by bahua »

We have tried numerous automated ways to combat the spam, but there is simply no bot-proof method. I have activated 14 new users in 2020, and while I agree that's a very low number, that is out of 954 registrations. The vast majority of these are bots. Even including the 14 users I activated, only six have more than zero posts.

I don't like it any more than you do, but the reason this site is not swimming in spam is because of these measures.
User avatar
normalthings
One Park Place
One Park Place
Posts: 7760
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:52 pm

Re: The Future

Post by normalthings »

bahua wrote: Thu Aug 20, 2020 12:50 pm We have tried numerous automated ways to combat the spam, but there is simply no bot-proof method. I have activated 14 new users in 2020, and while I agree that's a very low number, that is out of 954 registrations. The vast majority of these are bots. Even including the 14 users I activated, only six have more than zero posts.

I don't like it any more than you do, but the reason this site is not swimming in spam is because of these measures.
Switching to a host platform such as Tapatalk (what Urban STL uses) would take the burden off your shoulders
User avatar
bahua
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 10916
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2003 7:39 pm
Location: Out of Town
Contact:

Re: The Future

Post by bahua »

The burden of activating users isn't particularly severe.

Also though, I am committed to this forum existing ad-free. I promised years ago that it would be forever. Tapatalk offers no option for any price to keep ads off a forum with this level of traffic. Only individual users can pay a monthly fee to remove ads -- ads which do not benefit the forum in question either. All revenue goes to tapatalk. Also, tapatalk's privacy policy is onerous(sharing user data with business partners, etc), and I cannot in good conscience subject users of a free forum to compromising advertisement and onerous privacy after promising to do the opposite.
User avatar
grovester
Bryant Building
Bryant Building
Posts: 4390
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:30 pm
Location: KC Metro

Re: The Future

Post by grovester »

I don't believe people are not joining due to onerous application processes.

Most folks are voyeurs and just want to know what's going on without any intention of commenting.

"Long time listener, first time caller". Some eventually sign up when they have something to say.
kas1
Strip mall
Strip mall
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2015 10:36 pm

Re: The Future

Post by kas1 »

grovester wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:35 am I don't believe people are not joining due to onerous application processes.
I think you're overestimating how much people care about joining forums they have no existing ties to. Back when a Twitter account was necessary for activation I just didn't bother with it because I didn't have a Twitter account and didn't care to jump through those extra hoops to get set up here -- and I was even someone who had already posted here a few dozen times (on an account which was mysteriously deleted, presumably by mistake in the great war on spam). Email is more convenient, but for a random passerby they have to account not just for the time it takes to compose and send an email, but also the completely unknowable amount of time it will take for their email to be read and acted on. Pretty inconvenient for someone who wants to jump into an existing, ongoing conversation.
User avatar
grovester
Bryant Building
Bryant Building
Posts: 4390
Joined: Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:30 pm
Location: KC Metro

Re: The Future

Post by grovester »

So we agree?
mean
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 11138
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2003 9:00 am
Location: Historic Northeast

Re: The Future

Post by mean »

This forum at one point required a Twitter? That's funny. I never would have gone for that if I had known.
User avatar
teclis
Parking Garage
Parking Garage
Posts: 42
Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 12:07 am
Location: river market

Re: The Future

Post by teclis »

grovester wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:35 am I don't believe people are not joining due to onerous application processes.

Most folks are voyeurs and just want to know what's going on without any intention of commenting.

"Long time listener, first time caller". Some eventually sign up when they have something to say.
I believe I fit this description.
gfisch95
Parking Garage
Parking Garage
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2015 3:07 pm

Re: The Future

Post by gfisch95 »

I made an account almost for the sole purpose of the forum keeping track of what I had already read for me.
User avatar
bahua
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 10916
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2003 7:39 pm
Location: Out of Town
Contact:

Re: The Future

Post by bahua »

mean wrote: Wed Aug 26, 2020 4:33 pm This forum at one point required a Twitter? That's funny. I never would have gone for that if I had known.
Definitely not in the time I've hosted it, which began in 2006, I believe.
User avatar
Chris Stritzel
Valencia Place
Valencia Place
Posts: 1535
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:27 pm

Re: The Future

Post by Chris Stritzel »

Just putting this hear because it was talked about, but now the Forum displays a Tapatalk Favicon on my Safari on Mac. Before, there was never a favicon, so I just find it interest that there's a tapatalk one up there now.

Anyone else have this? Not sure if you can see it from the screenshot, but it's there in the top right.
Image
User avatar
bahua
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 10916
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2003 7:39 pm
Location: Out of Town
Contact:

Re: The Future

Post by bahua »

I think that's just safari taking a liberty with a phpbb forum without its own site icon.
Riverite
Alameda Tower
Alameda Tower
Posts: 1028
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2017 5:49 pm

Re: The Future

Post by Riverite »

normalthings wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 2:38 am
bahua wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:33 pm
bchociej wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2020 9:08 am Would you be interested in sharing numbers regarding bandwidth, traffic counts, database size, hosting costs, etc?
Hosting for the server on which this site runs(and constitutes 99.9999-repeating% of the host's traffic and use) is $20 a month. Annual domain renewal is about $15. Mail delivery is being increased from free to about $35 a month. The database is about 750 MB in size. Traffic numbers require installing a monitoring agent on the host, and I haven't felt compelled to do that yet. I suppose I probably should.
UrbanSTL uses Tapatalk which has hosting plans from a basic forum for $0 to $10/month for everything including a forum iPhone/Android app. It is, imho, a much better interface/experience with the app making it much easier to post project updates from. Tapatalk also manages spam prevention which makes the sign up process for a new account much much easier than our current emailing scheme. KCRAG has added something like 9 users this year. We need to make it easier to join and spread the word in general.

Tapatalk has a built in donation/award feature, supports advertisements and memberships, etc.

https://www.urbanstl.com

https://www.tapatalk.com/introduction
I would love to see us make it easier to join. I’m happy with the way the forum is set up but I also like Urbanstl. I think as the sort of face of YIMBY in KC it is important that we make it as easy to join as possible
User avatar
normalthings
One Park Place
One Park Place
Posts: 7760
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:52 pm

Re: The Future

Post by normalthings »

What are ambassadors on here?
User avatar
Chris Stritzel
Valencia Place
Valencia Place
Posts: 1535
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:27 pm

Re: The Future

Post by Chris Stritzel »

Anyone see how the Omaha forum looks after an update? Keeps the same general layout as this forum but with a more modern design.
https://www.eomahaforums.com/
User avatar
bahua
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 10916
Joined: Thu Jan 23, 2003 7:39 pm
Location: Out of Town
Contact:

Re: The Future

Post by bahua »

normalthings wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:10 am What are ambassadors on here?
This is linked at the top of almost every page. Supporters and Ambassadors keep the lights on around here.
User avatar
normalthings
One Park Place
One Park Place
Posts: 7760
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:52 pm

Re: The Future

Post by normalthings »

Is there a way to block a user entirely. I don’t even want to know they responded to my post
mean
Administrator
Administrator
Posts: 11138
Joined: Wed Feb 05, 2003 9:00 am
Location: Historic Northeast

Re: The Future

Post by mean »

You can add them to your ignore list, but I don't believe this marks their posts as read.
Post Reply
https://kcrag.com/viewtopic.php?p=644195&sid=f3b05ce64f239a668386cbf946449f37
kcrag.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-49
82686
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:L3WBZU7CNBKRMJEMZJGVTWPMR7NK2IPD
<urn:uuid:e4c25010-ac21-4188-83e8-3cd492358dc0>
2022-12-01T16:41:09Z
143.198.54.247
text/html
sha1:XGP6LR4DKE3C2NOH724BQJYEIRZRBN3A
<urn:uuid:e18a8f92-6cb2-4bdb-8d54-144158123be5>
https://kcrag.com/viewtopic.php?p=644195&sid=f3b05ce64f239a668386cbf946449f37
response
<urn:uuid:92b2319b-5b3b-43b5-ba89-900d0172f0d3>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-49
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for November/December 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-193
software: Apache Nutch 1.19 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.4-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/