Sorry Everyone For Inappropriate Content

[Vance]

To let everyone know we have been hit in the last few days by a users registering and posting content (pornography) on our site. We apologize for this and promise to keep a close watch on this type activity. There are several moderators that can delete this type stuff but it is hard to catch it all in a timely manner.

The option we have to alleviate this is for one of the moderators to approve each and every person that attempts to register for the site. Since we have not had this problem before we have elected not to create this hassle for those of us who volunteer our time to manage it. However, if we cannot keep this from happening we will be forced to do so. We have not chosen to do this since it will delay the legitimate users registration process.

As always, if you see something such as this that needs to be removed, please contact any of your officers or Steve Schuckman our site administrator immediately so it can be taken care of.

This site is for the benefit of all our members and it is unfortunate that we have to be subjected to this type activity. Be assured we are working to prevent it in the future.

[Bikebum]

How about next time leave it on here a little longer. Dang, I missed it altogether!

[SteveS]

Moderate New Users.

I have temporarily enabled "Moderate New Users" on the site. A moderator will need to approve all new users.

[R90srider]

I'm with Jamie; dang, I missed it too.

Thanks for being on top of this Vance and Steve, and no apologies necessary. You did good catching it so early. Our site is as good as they come and it looks like we can look forward it staying that way.

[dixieoutlaw]

Was it posted under Chit Chat or Great Rides section? Jamie needs to know so he can cut the chase. It wasn't in reference to the Heart Attack Grill was it?
Outlaw

[SteveHebert]

I for one really enjoyed it. I have been pretty bored over here just looking at bikes. That link was very entertaining. I thought Vance added it as a new venue for the national rally. Still didn't see any puddin rastlin there though.....

[Wrong Way]

Damn!! What did I miss!!

[Gator]

I always miss out on everything

[dixieoutlaw]

Word on the street is that Pudding could not believe such trash had been posted, and he lost two days of work because he kept checking back on the posts. Mari had to finally get him to remove the offensive content before his business would go bankrupt.
Outlaw

[Vance]

Wow...I guess I don't hide it very well...you guys caught me!

[bamabmw]

AlaBeemers and other guests on this forum,


We have had about 34 non-legitimate New Users sign up since Thursday. Three of them have posted porn. Steve caught, deleted and banned the first one, I caught deleted and banned the second one and Vance then caught and deleted the third one.
Some of our members check this forum at work and at least one person expressed to me that they could lose their job over it even if they had not gone to a porn site on purpose, so I have made the decision that we MUST reset the forum sign ups to approval only and I will be watching it nearly constantly along with the help of Steve and the other moderators. I cannot let this go on and possibly cause a member to either lose their job or get in an inordinate amount of trouble due to this problem.
At this point because of member safety I consider this of utmost importance and non-debatable. I hope no one has a problem with it but it simply must be done. It will be more work for Steve, myself , Vance, and Don but our members are more important than a little extra time spent and I really do not mind taking care of it as much as I possibly can. I'm sure our other moderators do not mind taking on this responsibility either in light of the possibly drastic effects on some of our members.
Steve has said that this is not just our website but that the vbulletin that we use is having that problem at many many other places, its very widespread right now.
After some time, it will probably settle down and we can go back to allowing users to sign up as before without having to gain approval first.
Please be patient with us for a bit. Steve has been working all night to get the forums set up to be handled for "approval only".
Connie

[bamabmw]

Well as it turns out it will fall entirely to Steve to approve new users as he says the software we use will not let even Super Moderators perform that action. However, should something slip through (highly unlikely) the moderators can still delete inappropriate posts, and should someone already signed up start posting inappropriate things we can also ban them from posting. So I believe that everyone should feel safe in checking the forums even if at work.
If Steve is going to be unable to be at the computer for a while because of a trip or something, I will post a note of mild warning about opening unkown user names posts while at work or something.
This really should all settle down with time I believe, but it's really an unknown factor.

THANKS STEVE !
connie

[bamabmw]

Steve has come up with a better way for this to be handled. It will fall more to the three SuperModerators, myself, Vance Harrelson, and Don Norwood to keep a watch and that's okay, and when Steve has to be travelling there will not be the delay for approval.

Steve has disabled the preapproval for new users. New users will get registered without approval just like they did in the past.

"When a new user makes his first post, it will not be visible to anyone else until any Moderator approves the post. Even the user who made the post cannot view it." After the moderator approves the content of the post, it will be visible on the forum. The same procedure will be in place for the next two posts. After three posts have been completed and approved, then there will be no further restrictions on their posting. "

This covers my fear for our members who might have a problem checking the forums at work. There will be no way that a pornographic post can get on our list this way, so I am all for it. As much as the three of us SuperModerators check this list, no one's legitimate post should be too long in getting visible.

If you have signed up for the forums, and have not made at least three posts, your post may get delayed until the above criteria have been met. I have gone through the member list on this site and I have given Steve a list of known users that he can manually "Pre-approve" and they will not have to go through the above 3-post trial period. There are a lot of those names so it may take Steve some time since he will have to do each one manually. If we miss getting yours done, just please bear with us because we are doing all we can to get this resolved and settled back down into business as usual.
If you are using an e-mail that I am not familiar with and you have NO profile information filled out, then you will not be pre-approved since I was unable to tell who you are. Again, just let us know, and we can work around it.

Thanks for everybody's patience.

Connie

[R90srider]

Good go Connie and Steve.

Thanks.

[dixieoutlaw]

To all the folks who have worked to make our forum a quality site, I really appreciate it. You can be proud of your concdern and work. Thanks.
Gary