Spurious members

[Dragonfly]

I see often new "members" of this list appear that are obviously fake, often with non-existing or nonsensical websites (possibly they're just some computer programs traveling over the Internet), like recently: Thomas Damon, Cillian Statham, Mark Ejiofor, Cillian Reynolds and probably also JohnWh. Perhaps it would be better if the moderators handle requests for membership, so that membership isn't granted automatically and a valid email address is needed and some kind of confirmation protocol. Of course this will generate some extra work (but not very much, unless the requests become a real torrent), but on the other hand you don't have to clean the list afterwards, so it might be a good investment.

[Kat]

Thanks for the heads up, Dragonfly. I have cleaned up our member list.

Here's how it works.... The forum software automatically sends out a verification email requesting that the member respond to activate the account. If the email is not valid, it bounces back to me. I can usually tell right off the ones that are bogus by excessive double letters in the member names and many of the bouncing emails have the same password requested. I have also seen links to website blogs of garble and garbage as well as dead links. We delete those accounts which do not appear to be legitimate or are not activated by the user.

If anyone is more familiar with these programs that sign up members automatically, please share some information about it either here or send me a personal message. I'm very curious about how this all works. I know that when you join a yahoo group, there is a box with letters and numbers to retype to prevent automatic joining. I think this is the next spamlike monster.

Also, if you see something that looks bogus or has a link to something inappropriate, please let me know and I will check it out and take appropriate action. I want to encourage people to link to their personal sites, businesses and blogs, but I don't want to link to offensive or inappropriate content, ads for viagra, etc. We are a community and those things are like graffitti.

We are still a young site and I am not ready to restrict the membership. There is too much of what Rich called, "the is you is or is you ain't an Objectivist" stuff going around and I think the approval process will be a turnoff for many.

I encourage new members and people who have not posted on OL yet to stop by the meet and greet section and say "hi, I'm human!"

Kat

[Dragonfly]

phentermmm is another one - this seems to be a form of spamming, so I'm afraid there will be more and more of them in the future.

I think few people will be turned off by an approval process if you clearly indicate that its purpose is to keep spammers and robot programs out and that it is not there for ideological reasons.

[Kat]

I have updated our posting guidelines to include our policy on this issue of bots and BS memberships. I am also looking into adding a visual verification process to the enrollment process to the forum to help prevent some of these issues. The following is posted up in the corner office, but I will repeat it here. Also, I am aware of a new member who is in clear violation of the policy. If the account is not properly verified within 24 hours, it will be deleted.

Kat

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5. The site owners, at their own discretion, may remove members that appear to be autogenerated internet robots ("bots") or members who join in order to add a link to sites which are spamlike, offensive or inappropriate for family viewing and have no interest in discussing or reading about Ayn Rand or Objectivism. Specifically, we don't want people joining OL to promote sites with warez, gambling, sex, drugs, get rich quick schemes, or anything along those lines. We may send out verification emails, in addition to the validation email that is autogenerated by our software, to confirm membership. Members should avoid joining using g-mail or dot-info email addresses, as those are commonly used by bots and bogus members. Spammers, bots and trolls are not welcome at Objectivist Living. To avoid having your account being deleted by mistake, it is a good practice to sign up using your name and also stop by Meet and Greet and introduce yourself or simply say, "Hi, I'm a human!"

[Kat]

Since our site was attacked in mid-July, Michael and I have made a few revisions to our posting guidelines. One of the changes we made was to require that members' identity is revealed to Michael and myself in order to participate in discussions. We have always preferred it this way and most people (and insects) are generally cooperative. In addition to the visual verification, we now have a name field that is a required field to complete registration. We have removed members who try to bypass this requirement by filling in the name field with USA or some other BS answer as they seem to be autogenerated. There are some members who do post under pseudonyms, but we strongly discourage this practice. We now have fields in every user's profile where they can now add in their real name and a little biographic info if they wish.

In addition, to protect your security and privacy, I suggest setting your email preferences in "My Controls" under Options —> Email Settings and checking the box that says "Hide my email address from other members." We have a wonderful personal messenger system here where you can contact other members and exchange email addresses and talk without having your email address up in public view on the internet. When we migrated to the new board, we deleted many members who looked questionable and we will continue to do so. We wish to keep the OL community a bot-free, spam-free and troll-free zone.

We have also formalized the pseudonym policy by adding this to the posting guidelines:

6. We discourage pseudonyms. Please register and post under your name. If you are using a display name, please enter your real name into your profile. Members who conceal their identity from the site owners could become subject to removal.

Kat

[Chris Grieb]

Kat;Thank you for your diligence. Only twice In the brief time I've been posting on this and other sites have I not used my real name. If you disagree with me I want to know. I also think when I finally get to met you you'll know my real name. I may get to around to supplying a photo.

[Kat]

Chris,

We know you are legit and you are one of our valued members. I love hearing about your firsthand accounts as a long-time Objectivist. It was a pleasure to meet you at the TOC seminar. We want people like you here.

We are mostly trying to prevent auto-registration by spam peddlers and programs (bots) that crawl the internet harvesting email addresses and posting links on forums automatically to boost their website traffic and search engine placement. All internet forums have this issue, not just OL. We have found some patterns in the behavior of these bots (log-ons with triple letters and such) and we have set our security settings very high since the attack. We also don't want trolls hiding behind pseudonyms.

Kat