Proxies

[TheRoguePrince]

I bet if we made a list of all spammers, dups, and troll attacks on MLK, I bet they would show over 90% used a proxy. And if we made a list of legit members who used a proxy, it would be less than 1%.

[Regulus]

I doubt anyone who would bother to register for an account on a lion king forum wouldn't have their own computer.

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... oxy_system

Looks like Wikipedia automatically blocks proxies from editing (unless it is from an existing account), and there are easy ways around it.

@Woeler: indeed, but the laptops may automatically use a home connection to connect to a filtering proxy from the school.

[wolfishgirl]

That's what the tech guy told us. Since they get logs of every place we've visited online, at school, home, or anywhere else. I may have heard wrong though...
Is IP like wi-fi?

And Reg... I don't have my own computer, (other than the school's laptop) and I registered with it, and get on everyday with it. So.... Think you lost that argument right there

[Regulus]

Either way, it's possible to work around it by reinstalling the OS, installing a second OS, installing a new browser, using a virtual machine, or if all else fails, installing a new hard disk... but that all probably violates the ToS agreement.

That's why I never used my school laptop at home, and rarely at school.

[TheRoguePrince]

I still don't see why Moka was against this though. Can we do, like DGFone said, and have them not be allowed to register with a proxy?

[Regulus]

Honestly, I don't know. I think it's possible Moka may have misunderstood the actual premise here. I'll bring it up next time he's around, just to be sure.

[FlipMode]

I do not want to have an absurdly tall wall of defense that new members have to climb in order to join this forum. At some point we need to draw the line between defense and how welcoming we are to new members. I believe that line is drawn where it needs to be drawn right now. New members shouldn't need to suffer an untrusting initial atmosphere just because we can't handle a few spam PM's once in a while.

Defence not defense.
I agree with what you said though, and really this thread should have ended with that post because its now another one of "those threads". Moka, who owns this site FYI has said basically that the measures in place are sufficient. It is easy and quick to deal with trolls and dupe accounts. I mean they have to - make a dupe account (proxy or not), get their posts approved, log in at a time the staff are not on... Seems like a waste of time and effort considering all the staff need to do is press the ban button and its all gone for nothing.

That is a reasonable line of defence, without putting up any more barriers for new / existing members. As far as I am aware, if you are on a proxy, you are already going to be suspicious because (as has been said) there is no reason for you to be on one on this forum. Having it as a rule is not going to stop people from using them anyway considering they would probably be using it to break the rules in the first place.

[TheRoguePrince]

^It's "Defense" in the US

Anyways, I just don't want another PM attack to happen. I don't know if you guys noticed, but a lot of older members signed in yesterday. I'm guessing they received the PM and signed in to view it. So the attack was more successful than we give them credit for...

Which begs the question? Can we remove the option to send mass PMs to everyone in a certain group? That's how the attack happened yesterday. Is there any legit reason for that feature on MLK?

[FlipMode]

^I do not care, I am from the UK, not the US - my language or get out lol

And nope, sometimes it is needed. For example, one could use it to advertise the Fanfic writing contest to fan fic writers. I remmeber a while back the groups were going to be revamped (it never happened) but if it did, the option to mass PM would have been handy ^.^
Staff members can also use it to PM all other staff members at once.

Again, there is nothing to do than to keep banning and ignoring them. If they want to waste their lives doing that, let them - has no effect on me. Even those old members who you said signed in, probably just saw it, rolled their eyes and logged back off. Which is the sensible thing to do, report + ignore.

[DGFone]

Which begs the question? Can we remove the option to send mass PMs to everyone in a certain group? That's how the attack happened yesterday. Is there any legit reason for that feature on MLK?

I used it once to inform basically everyone that there would be a solar eclipse (didn't know if it was sufficient to warrant a topic or not). Moka wasn't too happy when I told him about it (basically said to crate said topic), but other member's responses were more positive. Another case would be the MLK TinyChat information.

So to answer your question: Yes, there are legitimate reasons to use the mass receive PM option. But they are very rare and far in between.