Description
Feedback for problems, suggestions, and anything else relating to the website
tsumea
Bug in journals entries with lots of links
Forum
Hey, I've noticed that in the journals bit that if you write a post with multiple links in it then they get munged on the 'view comments' page.
ie: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofilepic.asp?p=A&news=1708"]This one about the new journal styles[/url] is different on [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofile.asp?member=444"]my ugly red coloured journal page[/url] to the nice blue 'view comments' page.
My wild-ars*d-guess is that the code to parse...
[code][L]www.website.com[L2]first link[/L] unlinked text [L]www.website.com[L2]second link[/L][/code]
...is being too greedy with it's match (and is matching from the first [L] to the last [/L]).
If you're using [url="http://www.regular-expressions.info/reference.html"]regular expressions[/url] then you need to convert your '*' to a '*?'.
The big suggestion
Forum
It could be too expensive and/or complicated, but perhaps sumea could have a section something like sourceforge but using sensible version control system like subversion?
I think it would help get the modding and collaboration really going.
Sourceforge provides project mailing lists, bug tracking, version control, file download and a bunch of other features.
I think having sumea related projects hosted on sumea is a better idea than hosting them elsewhere.
Sorceforge will only host open source projects. It's not designed for games- I think something designed for games would allow assets to be closed to everyone except the dev team if they desired it.
Also sourceforge has only been trialling subversion afaik. CVS is crap, particularly for art assets.
Links would work, and I'm not saying "sumea needs this", but it seems to me that sumea is aiming at being a focal point for community games projects, and that providing this sort of project support somehow would enhance that.
I think we looked up a version control system for the Sumea mod and all I could find was something like an ftp program.
Anyway, Mcdrewski showed that it was possible with a spare computer, and if it was something that was in high demand, then Sumea could offer it in the future. Although initially it might be just a spare computer (rather than a dedicated server whcih would be expensive) piggy backing my broadband connection (and running Sumea Paintchat [;)]).
Anyway, it just depends if there is a big demand for it.
quote:Originally posted by lorien
CVS is crap, particularly for art assets.
CVS works fine, we've used it for repositories 10 gig plus including art assets. We've also used SVN. SVN is only better for binaries once they are exceeding 100Mb per file. There are differences in how to do things, and some feature differences, but on the whole it doesn't make too much difference.
Setting up SVN is as simple as running the SVN server and opening (or forwarding to) the port on the serving machine. A few web scripts should allow new projects to be created quite easily (there are command line tools that could be executed with a "system" type command, and the config and password files per project on the server are text based and easy to manipulate.
quote:Originally posted by Dragoon
CVS works fine, we've used it for repositories 10 gig plus including art assets.
Depends how gutsy the machine is and how much ram it's got. CVS was never designed for efficient binary diffs whereas SVN is, so SVN is likely to mean more people able to use the system at once.
Perhaps a poll would be a good way of finding out if people like the idea?
Sumea Flashback update
Forum
If anyone's interested, [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sumeaflashback/"]I've updated Sumea Flashback a bit[/url]. I've put in a very cool java applet which emulates a Commodore 64 games in your browser.
Some of the Melbourne House games collection don't work, some titles do but the controls are a bit finicky, and there are tonnes of games still missing, but I'll be working on it. So if you wanna see some classic locally developed games from *two* decades ago, check it out [:)]
Sumea Maps
Forum
http://www.sumea.com.au/sumeamaps.asp
Just a work in progress on Sumea Maps which is powered by Google maps. It's missing a few of the bigger studios (couldn't find their postal address e.g THQ Studios Australia, Creative Assembly, Krome Studios, RatBag, Auran, Atari Melbourne House etc).
Planning to include a host of other locations including Educational institutions (AIE, Qantm etc), and events (AGDC, FreePlay, and others from the Sumea Calendar) and meetups (IGDA Brisbane / Melbourne etc).
Make sure you switch to Satellite to view locations in their highest magnification. It'll be much better and useful once I read up more on the Google Maps api [;)]
Ok, Sumea Maps is coming along very nicely thanks to Mcdrewski helping out with all the Ajx stuff. I've tied it to Sumea's database so if you go to a educational institution or developer's profile (and if we have entered the co-ordinates for it), then you should see a "find it on Sumea maps" button to see it. That button will also appear in news pages or the main page whenever there's an news about an event (and if we've put in the co-ordinates. So far we've only got ACMI's location down but I'll be adding more).
The next step is to make Sumea maps look a bit prettier and then let visitors enter their own locations into the database.
uq irc server
Forum
Hi,
Sorry if this has already been covered, just wondering
if the irc channel had been moved to a different server.
Regards.
Animators, Audio member profiles?
Forum
Do you think there is enough creative people around to warrant sections and member profiles for audiophiles, animators, and any other types?
poll post not working
Forum
I tried to reply to someone pointing out something in the current poll, and it just takes me back to the main page. Here's the post
Here it is (sorry bob, but I guess you won't mind...)
quote:
I didn't go.. But...
Career Achievement Award - John De Margheriti, Micro Fort?
You've gotta be fucking kidding me!!
Bigworld is virtually vapour-ware, while MF has had periods of massive growth, followed by massive layoffs. The whole thing reeks of bad decisions from the top of the company..
It should have gone to John Passfield or John Chey, or one of the many other people worthy of the honour... As far as I can tell, both Krome and Irrational have grown solidly - without the need for mass layoffs, not to mention actually releasing their titles on schedule.
Oddly enough I suggested the award should have been given to HazarD (a QANTM grad who has done rather well at creating a No Bullshit (tm) games company) instead.
Sumea Frappr Group
Forum
[url="http://www.frappr.com/sumea"][img]http://www.frappr.com/i/frapper_sticker.gif[/img] [/url]
Gratuitous plug...
http://www.meeze.com/dpm/AusGameIndustry.kml
set it up as a network link in google earth and enjoy!
RSS feed b0rk b0rk b0rk
Forum
The feed doesn't like the ? in Microfort?, and the date is also icky. Thunderbird (my current reader) thinks that every sumea story was posted on 01/01/1970 10:00:00AM (00:00:00+10h)
Sumea IRC channel has changed
Forum
The IRC server we were using has been shut down, and we have moved to irc.oftc.net. So come and join us in #sumea.
basically, I think redwyre means (forgive me if I'm wrong) that:
irc.oftc.net ---> 64.62.190.36
www.sumea.com.au ---> 66.148.2.51
irc.sumea.com.au ---> 64.62.190.36
So it would all happen at DNS level, and you'd never have to write a single line of code or layout.
Publisher List ?
Forum
Hey Souri,
How about a list of publishers for the website, similar to the developers list.
It could contain smaller ones, larger ones and perhaps a contact email adress and whatnot to contact them.
Id be happy to do some hunting around myself if anyone thinks this is a good idea.
Sumea Concepts
Forum
Ok, this is a new section on Sumea. Sumea members can test drive it at http://www.sumea.com.au/sconcepts.asp . You have to log in normally before viewing that page. Don't upload any pictures yet until I've put in the functionality for you to update/change anything you've uploaded.
Basically, Sumea Concepts is a new section currently for Sumea members (and later on the public) which is a gallery of high quality commercial concept art for games that's around these days. Sumea profile members can contribute to it, and hopefully it'll be a good place to get some inspiration from for everyone.
It's still being worked on, with ordering of thumbnails by their type, genre, rendering, game etc and updating existing entries not yet implemented. But you can check out the pretty pictures in the meantime.
Just a note that the show image button doesn't work in Firefox or Opera, but does work in IE. [:(][:X]
looks awesome except that my screens effectively cut in half when actually viewing the concept art which isnt a good thing (because idealy i want to be able to see it all without scrolling). Also might be an idea to have more of a concept art homepage rather then having the main directory as the upload page. Itll be great to build up a catalouge! good luck with this project
Yeh, that's what the show image button is for. It hides the top frame with all the thumbnails. Unfortunately, it only seems to work on IE. I have absoutely no idea why Firefox and Opera don't like it. If anyone has a solution or a workaround, please let me know. You can view the javascript in the page.
Ok, I've put in all the functionality for ordering the thumbnails in the library by artist, game, and categories. It's useful for finding anything particular, or especially for contributers who want to upload for them to make sure they're not putting up a duplicate piece.
I've also put in the ability to re-edit/re-upload any pics you've uploaded to the library, so if you make any mistakes, it's no problem at all.
Functionality wise, the new section is complete and is ready to go. I'll probably put something on the main page rather than just an upload form, but if anyone is interested in uploading stuff, go for it! Please do make sure it's *top quality* stuff though.
Sumea Comments for Sumea Members
Forum
Ok, just a little note that you can post in the comments area around the site under your Sumea profile name. You just login as usual and when you visit those pages, it should display your profile name instead of the text field asking for a name. Your posts will be marked differently to anonymous posters, so you'll look extra special too. [;)]
Make sure you log out when you finish. If you encounter any problems, please post about them here.
Eeek. I didn't think people would be using such a resolution to browse with. I just did a check and there's two things that look a bit funny (logo's no stretching across the whole screen etc). That's easily fixed though.
Anyways, I've been updating the comments a bit more with some small things. I have to say that they've pretty much been taken over by AFL and Rugby football fans. [:O]
Both of those sizes are at the extreme ends of the spectrum! The site should be fine at 1024x768 and above (there's just way too much stuff to fit for 800x600). You could switch to the other skins for 1600x1200 as they don't need that logo to wrap across the screen.
I've been planning to do some proper skins so that the site would look good for smaller screen resolutions (PSP, mobile, Palm etc), but I have so much things to do on the site aready [:X]
Audio discussion area?
Forum
I'd like to suggest one. What do others think? If one were to be made what sort of discussion topics would people like? What about audio programming? Synthesis?
Changed login code?
Forum
This one only seems to affect konqueror- which I know is an unsupported browser. Logging in worked fine up until a couple of weeks ago, now once I've logged in, instead of auto redirecting me to the forum, it brings up a dialog asking if I want to resend the form data. The way I get to a forum is by clicking the "Back to the forum" link.
Odd.
This only happens when logging in, all the posting stuff with works fine without me having to manually click the link.
Sumea Update August 2005
Forum
New plans for Sumea
Sumea Newstation
On the way to developing the Sumea Industry Timeline (which is going to use a mix of xml, asp, flash, and database action), I found some more nifty things to do for Sumea.
A new page on Sumea will be Sumea Newstation. Consider it a rss feed reader on Sumea. It'll grab all the latest headlines from tonnes of games and other news websites, and you'll be able to customize your news page. You can see a work in progress at:
http://www.sumea.com.au/snewsstation.swf
It's in its extremely early stages, but it IS working [;)] Other plans will include it spotting some keywords such as Australian/NZ games and developers and for it to automatically submit news onto Sumea.
My news searching days are nearly over, hurrah!
Sumea Creative Worldwide
I'm planning on opening up Sumea Journals to a world wide audience. It'll be a world wide creative haven for artists and programmers!
The main site will still be covering local content, but the journals will be international with a new subsite on it and hopefully accessed from journals.sumea.com.au. I'll be making the journals a bit prettier and making a lot of adjustments to cater the rest of the world and making it more user friendly, so this won't be appearing over night. Tonnes of other ideas planned to make Journals better. There'll most likely be an international section in the forum as well.
Sumea Timeline
Ok, I'm making another Sumea special page. This will be the Australian/NZ Industry Milestones Chart Timeline. It'll basically be a funky graphic chart listing some of the major milestones achieved in the local industry. It'll be tied to Sumea's database of games releases so we should automatically see a tonne of games listed in the chart. I may have to do this as an interactive Flash movie to cover the ideas I'm having.
It'll include things like when certain studios were created or shut down, dates of when all the great games were released from Exploding Fist to the latest Destroy All Humans! (and the sales numbers to go with it). Other things listed should include the first Free Play conference, when Sumea, the AIE and Qantm came, when Citizen Zero first started development , other trivia and anything else of importance.
If you think there's something that definately should be on that list, please post it in this thread. Accurate dates and info would be appreciated too!
Sumea Salary Survey
Should Sumea start an annual industry salary survey? All submissions would be confidential (anonymous, but you'll have to write down who you work for), and conducted anytime on Sumea.
Sumea QA Tester article
Forum
Ok, this is going to help me push ahead with the QA tester article. I'll be sending this off to as many developers with QA sections as I can. If you can think of any other questions to add to this list, please do go ahead.
1. What does QA testing involve
2. What qualifications do you need to work in QA, is there an age of entry?
3. Can you move onto other areas of game development from a QA position?
4. What kind of hours can you expect from a QA tester job?
5. What are the most common misconceptions of being a QA tester, and what is the reality to those misconceptions?
6. What are the best parts of being a QA tester?
7. What are the downsides of being a QA tester?
The "Do not embed Sumea's images" thread
Forum
I am kinda getting sick of other websites, blogs, and what-not sourcing images from this site. The problem here is that they're embedding the images from this site into theirs, so Sumea's server works doubly hard because it has to provide images for their visitors. This isn't proper internet ettiquette and, unfortunately, there is a tonne of it happening, so I'm taking measures into my own hands.
This thread will be the "Do not embed Sumea's images" thread, and I will post about places that have been thieving Sumea's bandwidth. The catch is that I will be replacing the images that they are using on Sumea with something else. Example:
Ozedood has created a [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofilepic.asp?pic=4_ssoldier.jpg&id=4&news=372"]really fab soldier drawing here[/url]. Unfortunately, this blogger is using the soldier picture from Sumea for his website. I've renamed the soldier picture to something else for Ozedood so his journal entry is fine, and I've put in its place a pic of some old guy wearing a Walmart plastic bag. [url="http://www.crushspot.com/profile.php?u=Carolinacrunk25"]You can see the changes here[/url]. Please make note of the matching sideway wearing cap!
(more to follow)
Submitted by J I Styles on Mon, 27/06/05 - 1:51 AMPermalink
Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Mon, 27/06/05 - 10:15 AMPermalink
Well, if you can imagine [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/simages2/4_soldierL.jpg"]this picture[/url] being smack in the middle of his blog (instead of that pencil drawing he has now), then that's pretty much it.
There's about 5 or so more sites and forums embedding Sumea's images (and probably countless others, but they've disappeared from my logs since they're from old blog entries/forum posts that are no longer visited, but they're still there).
Anyway, [url="http://www.rottemusen.1go.dk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=242"]this guy[/url] is using Anuxinamoon's avatar on Sumea for his avatar for forum posts. So, for every visitor that sees his messages on that board, Sumea has to serve that image. He's definately next.
Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Thu, 30/06/05 - 1:18 PMPermalink
These guys should know better. Selling a commercial product, but directly embedding Sumea's image of Torus's Duke Nukem GBA game...
Before:
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/20057238316_Duke1.jpg[/img]
After:
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/20057238343_Duke2.jpg[/img]
An Elf pic by Sumea member Chao at http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofilepic.asp?pic=447_ELFF.jpg&id=447&news=12…
Before:
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/200572381940_elf1.jpg[/img]
After:
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/20057239102_elf2.jpg[/img]
http://www.slayersonline.info/communaute/profil.php?id=45771
Submitted by Wizenedoldman on Sun, 24/07/05 - 8:56 AMPermalink
Ok, it's these guys again.. using the Doom GBA screenshots on Sumea...
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/200572392042_Doom1.jpg[/img]
Time for some Hoff action...
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/200572392135_Doom2.jpg[/img]
Top Gear Rally...
Before:
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/20057239355_rally1.gif[/img]
Hey, it's Optimus Prime!:
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/200572393526_rally2.jpg[/i…]
Submitted by J I Styles on Sun, 24/07/05 - 7:40 PMPermalink
This guy used the Destroy All Humans screenshots on Sumea to sell it on Ebay...
Before:
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/2005730232823_DAH1.gif[/img]
After: Here's a human that's worth destroying (please note, this image is a tiny tiny little bit disturbing)...
[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/2005730232841_DAH2.jpg"]DAH2.jpg[/url]
92.8 KB
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5221798903&category=2
Someone was using [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofilepic.asp?pic=335_monster_finalizedd.jpg&…"]Openanewworld's pic[/url] in their forum..
Before:
[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/2005730235624_monster1.jpg…]
After (ok, I thought last pic was funny so I reused it again this time.)
[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/souri/2005730235652_monster2.jpg"]monster2.jpg[/url]
51.09 KB
Ok, I've realised that this problem is really going to get compounded when I open up the journals, and I doubt that I can keep on doing this every time an image is embedded from Sumea, so I think I will be simply renaming the images directory every few months and adjusting the site's code each time.
Submitted by Pantmonger on Wed, 03/08/05 - 5:04 AMPermalink
My logs are pretty comprehensive. It just depends on what software your webhosts are using. My previous cheaper/smaller webhost had a pretty simple log, whereas the my current webhost gives me lots of data on a range of things including the exact urls that are referencing the site images, how many times they've been served etc.
Submitted by Pantmonger on Wed, 03/08/05 - 5:08 PMPermalink
Happy Birthday Souri!
Forum
Happy B-day Souri, Congrats on making it to the big 3, 0
have a great day and many more to come
Submitted by Anuxinamoon on Wed, 15/06/05 - 9:30 PMPermalink
Submitted by James A Burke on Thu, 16/06/05 - 1:55 AMPermalink
30!! Holy.. I can't believe it myself. [:0]
You know when you're in your teens and older people tell you how time flies and next thing you know, you're in your 30's, and you nod and go "yeh, whatever"? Well, as someone who was like that and then experienced it, I can tell you that it's all true. I still feel like I'm in my early twenties and wondering where the hell all that time went!
Sadly I am no longer in the hip and cool 20's age range, no more in the targetted demographic of cool stuff like.. uh.. music, clothes, and food. Now?s the time to get comfortable with the fuddy duddy 30's and easy listening music. And if any of you whipper snappers start approaching me with your loud rock music and funny hair styles, while quipping with your latest slang like "bootylicious", be warned that I will be shaking a stick at you from the comfort of my lounge chair and warm milk. >:D
I celebrated on the weekend with a $75 dollar dinner (with as much lobster, oysters, and wine possible), getting drunk and singing badly at karaoke, caught a $80 cab all the way to a friends place for some reason, then caught a cab back to the city for some clubbing till early morning, before collapsing into bed [:D].
Thanks for the posts, everyone! Happy birthday to DaMunkee as well [:D]
Submitted by Major Clod on Thu, 16/06/05 - 1:07 PMPermalink
What day is it?
Forum
I can't help but think there's something a bit screwy with the dc:date datestamp here. But nice to know Sumea's always first with news from the Future!
[code]
Free NZ Games Event - CAREER CHEATS 2
http://www.sumea.com.au/snews.asp?news=1523&related=Events
Submitted by Caroline
FREE GAMES EVENT - CAREER CHEATS 2
Come and celebrate the launch of the inaugural game #65533;Goliath#65533; de...
*submitted*
2005-07-06T13:15:09+10:00
[/code]
:)
Comment Spam >:(
Forum
Bah.. there is someone, right this very moment, posting a tonne of casino spam in the news comments. I've had to go through and delete 20 or so of his posts already, be he keeps on posting new ones. If he had half a brain, he'd see that the anchor tags in links posted in user comments have the rel=nofollow attribute, so all the effort he is putting in to increase his website search rankings isn't going to work. >:(
If you see any obvious link spamming in the comments, please do click the "comment abuse" button..
He's still posting them, so I'm parsing his domain with some other crap. [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/snews.asp?news=158"]You can see it here[/url]. Maybe he'll get the hint.
Bah.. it's still coming. It's most likely automated. :/ I'll write something so that it catches spam before it gets written into comments, but I'll have to do it later because I'm heading off now. >:(
Got home late last night, spent till 5am cleaning up all the comments from spam and putting in some measures that stopped the casino spam, wake up today and find a tonne more spam pimping a new site.
>:(
You know, I may have to implement users to authenticate themselves before they post. :/.. Or confirming letters from a graphic or something stupid like that.
You mean you don't have it that users need to authenticate themselves before they post? Bah Souri, that should've been like the first thing. It means that the spammers have to register on your site first and then they can post their spam... That would also make it easier to control as you could just delete their accounts etc.
I added IP filtering that morning, but that spammer had a different IP for every spam he posted, so it was useless. Anyway, what I've put in since has stopped them completely, so all I'm not sure if it's worth putting forum logins (I actually did that about four years ago but removed it) and other authentication. Unless of course it gets really out of hand with trolls.
Yeh, I've already been able to do that in the past. I've just found another 10 or so spam posts today to a different domain, so I'm assuming this spammer is just gonna keep doing this, and I really can't be screwed spending 10 minutes every day just to clean things up / block the new domain, so I'll have to make it require logging into the forum first. I'll also have an option for anonymous cowards to post somehow.
I just had a thought, perhaps the comments should be linked to Sumea profile members instead, rather than the forum. So, you'd log in on the main page with your Sumea profile account, then you'll be able to post comments on the rest of the site (news, votes, articles, other members' gallery pictures). The reason for this is that I can do extra things for your journals like listing your recent comments etc. Kinda like what all other blog services do.
An upside of this would be that it's easier for me to impliment (I don't have to go and figure out how the forum handles users/cookies etc) and it'll be more secure using server sessions.
Just an update on the spam situation. The site is getting over a thousand attempts a week to post spam in the comments areas, but they've been stopped dead in their tracks by a basic keyword filter. If any do get through, they're *easily* removed, so it's no problem.
I did a search on google on the spam they've been posting on Sumea, and these guys have been clogging and destroying blogs and comments areas on tonnes of websites all over the net.
Sumea = 1, Spammers = 0 [:D]
Boring updates on spam situation. Did a bit of searching and it looks like Sumea is just another on the list that's on the neverending attack from a notorious comment spammer called [url="http://www.geeklog.net/article.php/meet-the-bulgarians"]The Bulgarian[/url].
On top of that, there's also a barrage of referer spam too. In the thousands, per month. And unfortunately there's not much I can do against that on an NT server, but it's wasting server resources. I blame the log software for this because it's available to the public without even as much as a login required. So the spammers hit the site with referer spam so that the logs show their website, in which Google and other search engines pick up for page rankings. The solution is to stop the logs from updating and wait until all the old logs clear out, which will take half a year. This won't make them stop doing it though.
And now I've found that some spammers been trying to use email injection with Sumea's contact form to send out their spam. None of them have gotten through though (I've been getting tonnes of failed attempt reports) and I've made that a bit more secure.
There's only one answer - rampant vigelantism and total anarchy. [:P]
You can easily exclude the referrer logs from being indexed by any responsible search engine by using the [url="http://www.robotstxt.org/"]robots.txt[/url] exclusion. That might help a bit.
Ok, now I've been getting a tonne of bounced emails from forum registrations. You need a legit email address to finalise your forum registration, and all these new registrations are bouncing. Spammers are using some script to register usernames with a common pattern (name + numeric number). Unfortunately they're not smart enough with the legit email part.
So yeh, add that to another way spammers are trying to spam Sumea. [:(]
I can't edit the logs page. [:(]
quote:
...Spammers are using some script to register usernames with a common pattern (name + numeric number)
b*stards. i wonder what using non-numeric number would look like though. [:)]
quote:
I can't edit the logs page. [:(]
...but your webhost should if you request it! there's no good reason to let robots browse it AFAIK.
Is there anything we can do to assist? Take on email filtering roles or something? Are you looking for an army of ninja robots or special ops gerbils that we can provide?
Probably the only way to resolve things would be to relocate to take another domain name and wait to get attacked again. Not really anything else I can do. All these spam attempts are really another kind of DOS attack, to be honest. It's funny, when I reset the server (which resets the recorded number of Sumeans online), it only takes a few minutes to see that number fly back up to over 4-500. I think that tells you about how many bots and scripts are hitting the site. Some are legitmate, of course, but I'm betting that most aren't.
Ok, comment spam is still slipping through, and I've pretty much have had enough of it.
So from now on you can't post links in the comment areas on Sumea. If it's got the hallmarks of a link, then it'll get rejected. Later, I'll make it so that only profile members who've logged in can only post links if they really need to, but hopefully this will be the end of it.
Submitted by CynicalFan on Mon, 16/01/06 - 11:11 PMPermalink
Another update on the endless spam problems on Sumea which doesn't really affect anyone but me.
Comment spam is pretty much no more. Used to get hundreds a day, but I haven't spotted any in months. If you have a comment spam problem, just remove the ability to post links, and that should be the end of it.
Bounced emails from forum registrations is no more - I think the spammers gave up on that one.
The current problem now is spammers forging the from/reply-to headers in the email to make it look like it's from a sumea email address. They'll send it to a huge variety of email addresses, and if it bounces, it gets bounced to a random sumea email address. It's a bit clever, in that when they send spam, it can potentially go to twice the number of recipients. The problem here is that the only person it can go to is me, so once the spammers realise this, hopefully they'll stop and move on. Getting tired of checking my email and receiving a tonne of these emails, *all with attached images*...
Ok, comment spamming is back. And it's probably the worst kind of comment spam, because it's impossible to prevent. They're spamming the comment areas (mainly member's profile comments and news items at the moment) with jibberish, which you can't really filter. No description of their dodgy product or service, just a bunch of random letters or words. You can see an [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sprofile.asp?member=139&id=139&mode=comments"]example here[/url]. Yeh, it's all pretty pointless, and I have no idea why spammers would make their scripts do this, other than to waste someone else's time and resources cleaning all the mess up.
Once I finish working on updating the backend to remove spam better, it shouldn't be as much of a problem anymore.
Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 28/06/06 - 7:34 PMPermalink
Submitted by J I Styles on Wed, 28/06/06 - 8:33 PMPermalink
Suttelman be he.
here's a link to a duplicate post (spammed randomly in some tile discussion forum)
http://www.infotile.com.au/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001958.html
Ok, he's locked.
I've finished the backend stuff, and gone through and removed all the spam from members and news this morning. Removing spam is easy, but when there are hundreds of them that you have to mark as spam then click the selected comments to remove etc, it gets pretty darn tedious.
So when I removed them all (which took a while), I had a look in Sumea Comments just to recheck things, and found that the damn spammer made another hundred posts while I was busy. Yeh, it's getting highly annoying.
If you ever see spam, click on the comment abuse button. That'll at least get rid of half the job for me.
Google Web Accelerator
Forum
Just a warning to those using google web accelerator to check out this [url="http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1550469"]thread on Somethingawful.com[/url].. It might have the same issues here, with Google possibly storing private messages in the forum, your sumea profile details/password when you log in your account, which other people could see when they get googles cached version :/
WA/SA Coder Mixup (again)
Forum
Just thought I'd mention that the WA/SA designation on the coder section is the wrong way around again. It says that all coders from SA are from WA, while clicking on their profile indicates the correct state.
Sumea website updates planned - APRIL 2005
Forum
Just posting somethoughts on some updates planned on Sumea.
I've just finished putting in the functionality for Sumea Profile Members to customise their profile/blog/journal pages a bit and making those pages more useful. At the moment, I think they're cooler than a blog from LiveJournal or DeviantArt.
There's updating on Sumea planned. What probably needs most focus is on how visitors access Sumea member profile pages, and the work they've uploaded, and just usability.
At the moment, Sumea members are ranked in the section pages by how many times their profile has been visited. This is pretty darn silly. Case in point is that I'm ranked highest in the list and I haven't uploaded any new pics or journal entries in yonks. New members who do upload frequently will have a hard time catching up to the amount of hits I have raked over the years, most of which were probably received because I was ranked up the top.
So the plan is to list members by the last time they posted in their journal, plus an option to list members by how popular they are, how many comments they have recieved in their guestbook, and any other order I manage to come up with. This means I can ditch that other silly idea of unupgraded members. These were the members who joined and have not written anything in their journal, so were not listed in the memberlist. With the new method, active people are rewarded by being on top of the list, and slackers will appear at the bottom.
I've noticed that the amount of uploaded pictures on the site has grown pretty big now. I'll be putting in the section pages the ability to list the thumbnails by how many times they've been viewed, and by the the number of comments they have recieved, along with the order in which they were submitted.
Finally, I'll be finishing off some of the new skins on the site and making them more polished and unqiue (or in the Mini Sumea case, actually working [:D]). Also Redwyre's been giving me some ideas I wish he hadn't, since I haven't stopped thinking about them. The idea is to customise or even re-arrange what you want to appear on certain pages. For example, if you want a fast main page and could do without the member thumbnails, or latest journal entries, votes, and news highlights, you can turn any of them off.
Anyway, that's the plan for now.
agreed, thats cute :P