new user and phpbb comments

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lumpy
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:18 pm

new user and phpbb comments

Post by lumpy » Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:36 pm

Hi, I have been watching your videos for a couple of years now. good stuff. I sometimes yell at the screen when I see you making some of the same mistakes I have made in the past. :D
The biggest thing is not wearing a toolbelt and wasting so much time going after tools /nails/screws etc.

I remember my grandfather telling me "boy, put something in both hands, don't make so many trips".

anyway, not complaining, I think you are doing a great job and you get it figured out eventually.

so, to my point in signing up and posting:

what I do is phpbb support. you can find me here:
https://www.phpbb.com/community/memberl ... e&u=182473" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I noticed that you are running a very old version of phpbb and really should update. there have been several bugs and security updates since your version.
It is quite simple to do the udpate since you don't appear to have any MODifications installed other than the adsense ads.

that is another thing, you have the adsense ad code put in your overall_header.html and overall_footer.html files. that violates google's TOS and could get you shut down.
you are not supposed to put the adsense on any non-content pages. since putting the code in the header and footer files makes the ads show up on every single page of the board, that is against the rules. it will be on the register page, the log in page, the search page etc. etc. none of those have content.

anyway, I know you have been doing this a long time but it would be a shame for google to all of a sudden notice it and shut down your account.

I can show you how to do it so that it will look exactly the same but not be in violation.

and finally, I just watched the video talking about the trolls and the problems with youtube etc. I just wanted to let you know that trying to ban people by IP is a complete waste of time.
most people's IP address changes each time the reboot their router . spammers/trolls quite often use proxies and/or change thier IPs at will. all banning by IP would do is probably wind up banning someone you did not intend to.
you can not ban a household by banning the IP that they post under or that they registered under. that IP will likely not stay the same.
there are other/better ways to deal with spammers/trolls.

anyway, just trying to be helpful. If you have any questions about phpbb or would like any help with your board, just let me know. I would like to help you with it as my way of donating to your project.


robert

OutOfPlaceNinja
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Jan 24, 2015 3:37 pm
Location: USA

Re: new user and phpbb comments

Post by OutOfPlaceNinja » Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:02 pm

I agree it is a good idea to have all your ducks in a row and keep the forum updated. From personal experience I know an outdated forum software can and will get hacked as soon as some idiot comes along and realizes they can cause some trouble. This can actually lead to your host banning you. This happened to a friend who had a CMS software and it got hacked. It was out of date and the host said had it been kept up to date and she had taken general security precautions and such, they would have just suspended the account until the mess was cleaned up.

techman
Site Admin
Posts: 1329
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:49 am

Re: new user and phpbb comments

Post by techman » Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:45 pm

Lumpy,

Thank you very much for the offer of help. I find it quite annoying that the ads slow down my admin area.

Yes please tell me what pages and locations to put the adsense into. Thank you.

I dont plan to ban IP addresses actually. Its quite messy.

I used to have a lot of trouble with spam and automated attacks but I wrote a lot of code and made a lot of edits to my code so that is why I never did the update. It would be quite a job to start over again. I used to get literally thousands of spam posts per day. It was such a mess. Not its down to about one per week.

techman
Site Admin
Posts: 1329
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:49 am

Re: new user and phpbb comments

Post by techman » Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:46 pm

OutOfPlaceNinja wrote:I agree it is a good idea to have all your ducks in a row and keep the forum updated. From personal experience I know an outdated forum software can and will get hacked as soon as some idiot comes along and realizes they can cause some trouble. This can actually lead to your host banning you. This happened to a friend who had a CMS software and it got hacked. It was out of date and the host said had it been kept up to date and she had taken general security precautions and such, they would have just suspended the account until the mess was cleaned up.
I know. I lost my servers more than once through the years. I will see what I can do about it.

lumpy
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2015 12:18 pm

Re: new user and phpbb comments

Post by lumpy » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:40 pm

actually, I was mistaken. you do not have the adsense in your overall_header but you do have it in the overall_footer.

I would suggest moving the ad code from the footer file and putting it at the very bottom of the index_body.html, the viewforum_body.html and the viewtopic_body.html files.

that way it will look pretty close to what it does now, but will not violate the TOS by showing up on the search page , etc.

robert

techman
Site Admin
Posts: 1329
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:49 am

Re: new user and phpbb comments

Post by techman » Mon Feb 16, 2015 9:05 pm

Actually you were not mistaken. I immediately made the changes and move the ads out of the header as you suggested.

As you can see on the side bar I now have static ad positions. I will be selling these places to companies soon.

I will make the move from the footer as you advised.

Thank you for saving my behind.

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