Cool. Best of luck 
76 2008-11-04 12:16
Re: Pls do something about the spam on this forum (3 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)
77 2008-11-04 08:12
Topic: Pls do something about the spam on this forum (3 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 discussion)
In the last week there's been a big outburst of spam on punbb.org.
It is annoying - every time I go to see the new posts, I see all this spam.
Plus, of course, it is not a good advertisement for PunBB v1.3 that it is clearly vulnerable to spambots, even before the final release.
Please do something about it. Maybe it is time to put in effect on punbb.org something like your own v1.3 antispam extension?
78 2008-11-03 20:04
Re: Please help with Attention Mod (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
Hmm. That all looks OK.
However, consider this, which I got from Googling those characters you are seeing:
Yes, "" is the Byte Order Mark (BOM) of the Unicode Standard. Specifically it is the hex bytes EF BB BF, which form the UTF-8 representation of the BOM, misinterpreted as ISO 8859/1 text instead of UTF-8.
Probably what it means is that you are using a text editor that is saving files in UTF-8 with the BOM, when it should be saving without the BOM. It could be PHP files that have the BOM, in which case they'd appear as literal text on your page. Or it could be translated text you pasted into Joomla! edit windows.
The Unicode Consortium's FAQ on the Byte Order Mark is at http://www.unicode.org/faq/utf_bom.html#BOM
One of the suggestions for dealing with the problem Google turned up was:
ftp download the most likely php files you edited, open them in notepad, do a file save-as and be sure to set the encoding to ANSI (at the bottom of the save-as window), then upload the files back again.
Try that.
79 2008-11-03 10:40
Re: Please help with Attention Mod (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
flux7d wrote:
I'm using FlashFXP...
from youre code, my main.tpl looks fine, but I have a google syndicate ad, but that can cause the problem?
With your FTP client, dig around in the settings and just make sure that *.php and *.tpl files are treated as ASCII format text files, and transferred that way when uploading/downloading, instead of as BINARY format files. Every FTP client handles these formats differently, but all will let you tell them how to do transfers properly. Transferring text files as binary, and vice versa, is usually bad.
The Google ad code shouldn't be a problem. Well, not normally.
Can you post the relevant section of your main.tpl that shows both the google code and also the attention.php?
80 2008-11-03 03:45
Re: [Release] Topic Image Mod (3 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
Looks good. Thank you for releasing that.
A few quick initial comments...
The code can be edited to allow moderaters, members and guests the ability to post images also - though I strongly recommend against this due to trolls, spammers etc. If a few people like the mod I can add these options as a plugin.
I think doing this would add a lot of great extra utility to this mod. The risk of abuse is there but it can be controlled I think.
Another good admin option (if it's not there already) would be to let the admin specify which forums this feature is active in.
For example, say I have a general community forum for little old ladies to network in, and I want to create a 'for sale' forum where they can list stuff for sale and include a picture of the item to be sold, to make browsing the stuff listed more useful. This feature would only make sense in the 'for sale' forum so that's where I'd only want it to be available.
This might be able to be achieved by a permissions settings per forum or by some other means via the forum Administration area.
There may also be forum performance issues involved in having topic images enabled in every forum, so being able to turn the feature on in only one forum could make a noticeable difference to a big or busy site.
I will go away now and have a play with it.
81 2008-11-03 03:14
Re: Please help with Attention Mod (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
OK, what does your YOURFORUM\include\template\main.tpl look like?
I've used this mod with no problems in the past and this is what the relevant section of main.tpl looks like when I use it:
ETC ETC
<div id="punwrap">
<div id="pun<pun_page>" class="pun">
<div id="brdheader" class="block">
<div class="box">
<div id="brdtitle" class="inbox">
<pun_desc>
</div>
<pun_navlinks>
<pun_status>
</div>
</div>
<pun_include "attention.php">
<pun_announcement>
<pun_main>
<pun_footer>ETC ETC
And this is the contents of my PUNFORUM\include\user\attention.php, which displays without any issues:
<?php
if($pun_user['is_guest'])
{
?>
<div class="block">
<div class="box">
<div class="inbox"><p align="center"><b>Welcome Guest!</b> To post a message, please <a title="site registration link" href="register.php">register</a>! Registration is easy and free. If you have registered, please <a title="site login link" href="login.php">login</a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<?php
}
?>Another thought: make sure that you have uploaded (via FTP) any files you have modified as ASCII text. What you are seeing might be some sort of binary artefact.
82 2008-11-02 21:16
Re: Post your "in the wild" siting of PunBB here. (96 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 show off)
This is a notable PunBB forum, not for the style or anything, but for the organisation running the forum:
http://www.stopforumspam.com/forum/
They run a very useful anti forum-spam service. Their IP blacklist is very handy...
83 2008-11-02 20:08
Re: Please help with Attention Mod (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
Also what is the URL to the mod you are using from punres?
84 2008-11-02 20:02
Re: Horizontal Userlist w. Avatars, Sorted by post count (4 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
What a nice mod. Good work.
I am also very much looking forward to the release of your
Topic Image Mod:
http://www.willvilliers.com/viewtopic.php?id=90
It would be very handy for a lot of forum purposes. One I am thinking about is a for-sale forum, so you could see a preview pic of the item for sale..
85 2008-10-29 10:20
Re: Unwanted users/porn adverts (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
Anatoly wrote:
Do you mean http://punbb.informer.com/wiki/punbb12/mods_and_plugins?
Feel free to edit the page and add the plugins that should be there.
He might mean:
http://punbb.informer.com/downloads.php
where many of the other useful 1.2.* admin plugins are listed and downloadable.
86 2008-10-27 23:50
Re: Unwanted users/porn adverts (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
marcusw wrote:
This plugin any good?
http://www.ninethsense.com/content/view/57/51/
How do I use it? Paste it into a vile called AP_Forum_cleanup.php and put it into www/MyForum/plugins
Don't know if is any good, but yes that is how you would install it under 1.2.*.
Let us know how it works for you.
87 2008-10-27 08:45
Re: Simple Antispambot-code Mod v0.8 (39 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
PunBB 1.3 (which is the next version) includes extensions system. Using it, you are able to download a pun_antispam extension and install it with one click.
Excellent!! That will be a very popular extension for 1.3. Thank you for that news.
However it will be CAPTCHA based by the look of it, which has disadvantages.
Any chance of adding into that mod another field to the form and the DB to record a text-only response along the lines of the simple anti-spybot mod of this thread?
CAPTCHAS seem very vulnerable to automated (or outsourced human http://www.decaptcher.com/client/ ) attack, that's all, with VB, PhpBB, Gmail, Yahoo, MS etc all reporting CAPTCHA's being cracked.
Sometimes text-based Q&A can be harder to crack (even by outsourced humans in India or Vietnam) with good questions that may, for example, require some specific cultural or local understanding, or familiarity with a web site.
88 2008-10-27 02:35
Re: Simple Antispambot-code Mod v0.8 (39 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
tundern wrote:
How can we make sure that this modification is in the next version of PunBB, maybe with the ability of the administrator to change the questions and answers without going into the register.php file?
Ask the PunBB developers nicely
They know spam is a problem, and this sort of mod (simple question & answers with the addition of an admin control panel to make it easier to admin) might be part of a solution they could consider including in the core.
89 2008-10-26 20:48
Re: Unwanted users/porn adverts (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
marcusw wrote:
Also, for some reason some of the users will not delete. Does anybody know why and/or how to fix this? It tends to be spammers with thousands of posts, not spammers with only one or two posts.
You may have to go in and do it manually by editing your forum database with phpMyAdmin or similar. Tread carefully though if you choose that route and do a DB backup beforehand
90 2008-10-26 20:45
Re: Unwanted users/porn adverts (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
A built-in solution, like for example the mod by Jacky or even my more simple anti-spambot mod, would indeed be useful.
I think some form of simple (preferably non-CAPTCHA) anti-spam certainly should be a built-in feature of 1.3, and include an area within the control panel to administer it.
A by-product of having this would be a drop in PunBB support requests here and elsewhere.
The issue has been discussed here for years but so far I am not aware of any commitment to such a feature from the PunBB or FluxBB devs. I hope I am wrong on this.
91 2008-10-23 20:27
Re: Unwanted users/porn adverts (15 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
First, you need to seriously update your PunBB version - 1.2.20 is the latest.
I presume you require registration on your forum, and don't allow guest posting. For Pun 1.2.* this is a popular, effective and easy to implement anti-spam mod that makes it harder for bots to register on your forum:
http://www.punres.org/desc.php?pid=503
For a CAPTCHA based antispam mod, search punres for 'captcha' and choose from many options.
As to a quick way to delete unwanted users and posts, have a look at the 'forum cleanup' and 'user management' plugins available here:
92 2008-10-22 21:49
Re: Simple Antispambot-code Mod v0.8 (39 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
tundern wrote:
Dear Sirena
Thank you for the suggestion. The answer looks good. However, I'm still dumb, so dumb that I don't know how to get to my register.php file...
Have asked my ISP to help. Do you have any further advice?
Do you have the ability to FTP into your web server, to upload files etc? Most web hosts will let you do so. FTP clients are available everywhere for download - eg FileZilla:
http://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client
If you do have FTP, connect to your website with your FTP client, move to the folder that contains your Punbb forum files, find the folder that contains your current 'register.php' file, and then upload to that location the files that came with Jacky's mod. Make sure you upload the files as 'ASCII text', by the way, not 'binary' format.
Before you upload them, of course, open up the files of Jacky's mod with a text editor and modify the questions etc in there to suit your needs.
You may also be able to do all of this via the web-based control panel offered by your web host (eg cPanel) rather than FTP, but that depends on what your host has setup for you.
93 2008-10-20 05:51
Re: How to Restrict the Size of Signature Image Height / Weight? (13 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
In 1.2.* you have some options (eg disable images in sigs) under Administration > Permissions > Signatures to control use of BBcode etc as well as signature width and height (eg 4 lines etc) and use of images per se.
But it doesn't restict image dimensions in the same way as, for example, the way avatar size can be restricted to specific sizes and kilobytes.
If in doubt just disable images in sigs per se.
Not sure about 1.3.* - haven't looked.
94 2008-10-18 21:25
Re: How to set each forum one style as Jeroen Wijering forum? (3 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
That is a very nice and simple layout.
A similar effect to their forum front page can be achieved by using extern.php. (Included with punbb - instructions available in the file). Or use one of the 'portal' plug-ins from punres that let you setup such a forum front-page.
To achieve a similar style to the forum pages themselves, either just manually pare back one of PunBB's standard styles like Oxygen, or choose one of the very light (eg Minima) styles already available from punres as your starting point.
95 2008-10-15 22:27
Re: sukalo.com (1 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 show off)
Aha. But what's there to show off? Stock-standard style etc. Needs more spice!
96 2008-10-14 22:41
Re: Spam from .RU or mail.ru - how do i block this domain or ban it? (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
Aha.
For Pun 1.2.* this is a popular, effective and easy to implement anti-spam mod that makes it harder for bots to register on your forum:
http://www.punres.org/desc.php?pid=503
For a CAPTCHA based antispam mod, search punres for 'captcha' and choose from many options.
But you may not need to use a CAPTCHA mod if the first one works OK for you. Suck it and see.
97 2008-10-13 22:54
Re: Simple Antispambot-code Mod v0.8 (39 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 modifications, plugins and integrations)
If you want a real easy way to do an anti-spam registration page on 1.2*, download this file by Jacky:
http://www.punres.org/files.php?pid=503
It includes a ready-made anti-spam register.php you can just drop into your site to replace the default register.php (and a few support files you'll need to place on your site too).
You will need to customize the questions the mod asks though, of course, but that really is pretty easy and doesn't involve editing any code.
98 2008-10-02 11:31
Re: Spam from .RU or mail.ru - how do i block this domain or ban it? (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
movingzachb wrote:
I want to know how I can ban .ru domains or mail.ru or gawab.com and all of these domains that spam keeps coming from.
Zach
Maybe it's just me, but could you be clearer about what you want to do?
Do you want to block spammers from registering on your forum?
Do you want stop spammy forum posts?
Specifically, do you mean:
(a) you have email verification turned on, and you want to ban users who attempt to register using *ru email addresses (or who supply *ru web addresses) when they register?
(b) you want to ban users who attempt to register from Russia or any other specific IP address range or domain entirely?
(c) you want to block posts that contain links to *ru or other spammy sites?
I am presuming (a), but it is hard to tell.
99 2008-10-01 21:05
Re: I need SPAM protection very badly! (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
PS - you really do need to update your PunBB to the current version.
v1.2.15 is OLD and there are many fixes in v1.2.20, not the least of which relate to various security problems. If you aren't careful. spambots may be the least of your problems. Upgrading ain't that hard to do.
Nice simple style BTW. I like.
100 2008-10-01 20:55
Re: I need SPAM protection very badly! (9 replies, posted in PunBB 1.2 troubleshooting)
If you are on 1.2, try adding this this simple anti-spambot mod to your register.php:
http://punbb.informer.com/forums/topic/ … e-mod-v08/
It's *very* easy to install and customize in its basic form and has been proven to be very effective in stopping the kind of bots that seem to be bothering you.