Forum Downtime Scheduled

[Savonarola]

FFForums will be temporarily offline starting sometime tomorrow afternoon.

An estimate for time of restoration cannot presently be made. The software will be updated, and several modifications will be implemented. These are designed to prevent robot spam while still permitting anonymous users to post. This is, unfortunately, a losing battle, but we will strive to allow anonymous users on our board for as long as reasonably possible.

If you make a post too near the time of maintenance, your post will be lost. If you want to submit a post tomorrow afternoon, I recommend keeping a copy until the discussion board is up and running again. The post may have to be submitted again.
Likewise, due to the multiple modifications being implemented, the forum may be running for short periods of time while maintenance is still being performed. Any posts made during these periods may be lost.

If you have any profile settings for the Chat Room, these will likely be lost. You will be able to replace them. Other profile settings will not be altered.

You will most likely not be automatically logged in once the software is running again. You will have to log in again. (Notice this is only logging in again, not registering again.)

When the maintenance is completed, a reply to this thread will appear to announce that you are once again safely welcome to post on FFForums.

Thank you for your cooperation.
--Sav, FFForums Mod@Large

[Savonarola]

Welcome back to the new, improved, and -- hopefully -- underspammed FFForums!

Our Chat Room has been restored, although your settings may have been lost. You can input them again by editing your profile.

A software update has added a CAPTCHA to the registration page, making it harder for bots to register as users.
A new modification helps detect when bots try to register. As an effect, new users will not be able to submit a URL when registering, but one may be added to the user's profile once registration is complete.

The previous anti-spam modification has been further modified. If you are posting a short message, please be sure that ten seconds elapses between the time you load the reply page and the time you attempt to submit.

Finally, another (modified modified) modification to help prevent bots from posting spam as guests has been installed. Unfortunately, this means that guests will be required to fill in an extra field before posting. This may be a bit of an inconvenience, but it accomplishes three important goals:

1. It will reduce bot spam, which has gotten uncontrollable lately.
2. It will serve as yet another (more effective) reminder/indicator when a user is not logged in.
3. It still allows guests to post anonymously, contrary to the easy "fix" of disabling guest posting.

Thank you for your patience.
--Sav, FFForums Mod@Large

[Dardedar]

DAR
Good job! Three cheers for Savonarola!

[Betsy]

Cheers! Cheers! Cheers!

(thanks Sav)

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Thanks. Especially the part that forces you to notice when you're not logged in. I got caught on that this morning, but would much rather get that than post something and THEN discover I'm not logged in.