Forum blocking IP addresses

[phelix]

Maybe the forum's IP filter is a bit too aggressive? From time to time I have problems posting. Now I got this message from someone on bitcointalk:

I tried to register on dot-bit.org but my IP is banned. I also tried to register with Tor but it seems all Tor IPs are banned, too.

[domob]

I also once had my IP blocked (presumably because someone used the same dynamic IP before), which was quite annoying. Tor doesn't work at all, which is also a pitty because I like to use it whereever possible and I think that the "target audience" of people interested in Bitcoin/Namecoin has a non-trivial intersection with the set of people interested/using Tor. So I would be all for a less stringent IP blocking if that doesn't hurt too much from a spam perspective.

[virtual_master]

It happened to me by trying the registration to the litecoin forum that I mistyped my email address and I couldn't registrate with another user name telling me that I cannot have 2 accounts. Validation of the former registered account was also impossible because of the mistyped email what I entered before.
I think by other forums is even more strictly then here however it is difficult to say what exactly happened in the quoted case.

[biolizard89]

One of my Internet connections is also blocked from the Namecoin forum. I would strongly encourage removing those bans (particularly against Tor), otherwise our reputation as a pro-privacy project will suffer.

[virtual_master]

One of my Internet connections is also blocked from the Namecoin forum. I would strongly encourage removing those bans (particularly against Tor), otherwise our reputation as a pro-privacy project will suffer.

If it would be a decentralized forum (a working forum.bit only) or anonymous on tor than it wouldnt be a problem.
But the owner of the forum and domain would take the responsibility for eventually offensive/illegal contents/links ?
I think he should decide if he accepts tor because if there is a problem he is responsible. Of course the Forum administrators will have also some additional work on eliminating more spam and the question is if they accept this.

[phelix]

There was plenty of spam today.... whatever we do with the IP Filter we need a more difficult captcha / questions to register.

[jprider63]

Perhaps a solution is to leave the ip blocker for registration, but allow captchas for posting and other actions. I'm not sure this is possible with the forum software though.

[biolizard89]

Perhaps a solution is to leave the ip blocker for registration, but allow captchas for posting and other actions. I'm not sure this is possible with the forum software though.

CAPTCHAs for posting would become annoying very quickly. Also, the concept of CAPTCHAs is fundamentally broken because buying CAPTCHA solving services using slave labor is incredibly cheap and easy these days.

I've used Akismet in the past; it seems pretty good at blocking spams.

[jprider63]

CAPTCHAs for posting would become annoying very quickly. Also, the concept of CAPTCHAs is fundamentally broken because buying CAPTCHA solving services using slave labor is incredibly cheap and easy these days.

I've used Akismet in the past; it seems pretty good at blocking spams.

I don't think CAPTCHAs would be that bad. Reddit makes you fill one out before every post. I understand that CAPTCHAs are a much easier form of protection to break, but leaving the ip blocking up for registration would act as sort of a "wall" that would force spambotters to manually create an account or switch to a non-blocked ip. This might be sufficient.

[biolizard89]

CAPTCHAs for posting would become annoying very quickly. Also, the concept of CAPTCHAs is fundamentally broken because buying CAPTCHA solving services using slave labor is incredibly cheap and easy these days.

I've used Akismet in the past; it seems pretty good at blocking spams.

I don't think CAPTCHAs would be that bad. Reddit makes you fill one out before every post. I understand that CAPTCHAs are a much easier form of protection to break, but leaving the ip blocking up for registration would act as sort of a "wall" that would force spambotters to manually create an account or switch to a non-blocked ip. This might be sufficient.

I would not be happy about filling a CAPTCHA every time I post. Simple as that.

What's wrong with Akismet or a similar service? They generally don't annoy legit users at all.