ARCHIVE: Australian Ham Radio Discussion Forum ( AHRDF )

(31-07-2017, 09:41 PM)VK2YOC Wrote: [ -> ]I don't see anything but the login screen when not logged in, I don't think that's a good idea as there is no way a potential member can check out the forum, also it seems a little elitist to me.
Is there any way that the posts can be viewed, but no one can post spam etc.
I don't mind having to login to post, but I think viewing should be public.
John

John

It has nothing whatsoever to do with elitism. It is purely trying to manage the forum well, keep server response times low and without wasteful data traffic.

I actually spend hours each day tracking down IP addresses of visitors to see their origins, if outside of Aus then do a lookup on the spam database to see if the IP is the known source of spam, manually lock out access to that IP group. Then I often find the same source has switched IP addresses to a new block and the process continues another loop.

If everyone who is registered always logged in then most of that process is virtually eliminated, however despite asking on the Forum for users to do so all of the time, many failed to conform.  If I immediately see the callsign/IP combination listed then I need do no more.

I would be happy to 're-open' the Forum immediately provided all users agree to log in all of the time.

Doug, Admin

I think it should be open for anyone to view.
I always login because that's the only way to see what's new since I last looked.

Hello Doug,
  you might be able to clarify this for us, you say a lot of time is invested in maintaining the IP blocks for the forum, okay I fully understand that, having run public facing systems myself over the years, which sucks a lot of time out of your life but I am guessing that effort is to stop unwanted registrations occurring, not to stop people viewing the forum content? 

How does that fit into restricting public viewing of the forum content?  surely the content can be open for VIEW but require a person to be logged in to post in a thread or start one or are we missing some key fact to understand the situation.

regards,
Peter Sumner, vk5pj

Peter

The intent of 'closing the forum' is mainly to stop hackers and spammers, but also to reduce wasteful / unwanted web traffic.  There are many web-bots out there that traverse the site looking for weak spots - entry points to gain access and introduce spam or take control of the server. My observations to date show that China, Brazil, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Thailand etc all have very active hackers while some of the European  countries, particularly France, have very hostile spambots. If you were around yesterday, 'Doug4King' managed to register but was only active for under an hour before I purged the login and locked out the IP range - but if I wasn't around to see it then more issues were likely to arise.

As stated previously, determining who is accessing the server purely by the IP address is a slow and wasteful process but by forcing the login then the username plus IP are displayed as an immediate match - those I then do not have to be concerned with.

The forum traffic figures far exceed the expectation generated by the volume of registered users doing daily checkins plus 3 search engines traversing the site. Only Google, Yahoo and Bing were allowed access to the open site but that did not stop other bots from trying to do so, generating more traffic and slowing the server response.

The 'closed state' is only a trial, one that can be terminated anytime. Maybe even tomorrow. I simply don't know yet as I haven't seen the improvement that I wanted / needed.

Doug, Admin

Many of the Forum's regular users will have realised that I 're-opened' it to general viewing this last Wednesday, and hence again not requiring a login to read posts. I have intentionally not posted about this so I could see how many users continued to log in versus those who didn't.  I have to say that there are still too many registered users browsing without logging in and, as requested previously, those people need to start doing so. I am in a continuing fight with random IP addresses but logged-in users' IPs are easy to identify and avoid.

I have also closed the Forum to virtually all countries except AU, NZ, GB and US visitors in an effort to controll spammer and hacker access. The banned IP list continues to grow every day, all by manual assessment and insertion.

The new chat option was only being used by very few so has been disabled and will probably be removed entirely.

The settings affecting Forum options and access are under continuous review.

Doug, Admin

UPDATE 13 Aug 2017:

Please be aware that while posts from the Southgate Amateur Radio Club News RSS were recently being seen as new items in the Latest Posts on the RHS of screen, new posts are still being added to the forum BUT are no longer listed in Latest Posts section. This has been changed to make actual users individual posts more obvious and not lost in the multitudes..

Visit the Latest News from Southgate ARC area listed under Miscellaneous Posts to see what is happening in the world of AR.

I am still working on a solution so that the SARC RSS feed can simply be displayed rather than appearing as a thread posting.

The chat option has now been removed completely.

The original forum domain at OZLOGGER.NET will lapse shortly so will no longer act as a pointer to the AHRDF forum, as it has been doing for the past couple of months.

Eventually the search engines will catch up but please make sure that you have updated your bookmarks to ahrdf.net 
 
Thanks
Doug, Admin

Further experimentation has been undertaken to provide the Southgate Amateur Radio News (RSS feed) details on the forum and this has now been achieved without those details being recorded as forum posts.

The SARC news now appears on the extreme RHS of the display BUT there is also a right or left triangular arrow symbol near the column top which allows individual users to either display those details or contract the display column and make it disappear.

Look for the symbol as displayed below, try it each way and leave it set there.



Note that those SARC News postings are dynamic on a daily basis. What was there today may not be there tomorrow...

Hello Doug,

The new arrangement for the Southgate feed works very well.

Being an ex Media Studies student, I went looking for the publisher of the Southgate feed out of interest, mainly. It seems all links from Google lead to the news feed, with nothing on http://www.southgatearc.org providing any details of the 'club' or where it is based. I'm still in the dark!

Is there anyone out there who can provide a link to Southgate with some solid information on it? (no Facebook links please).

Thanks,,
Ian
VK3YCQ

(05-09-2017, 07:23 PM)VK3YCQ Wrote: [ -> ]Being an ex Media Studies student, I went looking for the publisher of the Southgate feed out of interest, mainly. It seems all links from Google lead to the news feed, with nothing on http://www.southgatearc.org providing any details of the 'club' or where it is based. I'm still in the dark!

Is there anyone out there who can provide a link to Southgate with some solid information on it? (no Facebook links please).

The domain name is registered to a Richard Brunton, G4TUT, who lives in Essex, UK.

It is interesting to note the lack of posts occurring by general users over the past few days. 

I find it hard to believe that there hasn't been anything of interest happen in some 200+ shacks in VK over the past week, or some AR-related question that begs an answer...

So is it any wonder that the SouthgateARC news was added to provide at least some activity on the forum ????????

If you don't want the forum to continue, please say so. I can even put up a poll Yes/No if that would make it easier to be anonymous.

Your turn.

Doug, Admin

I wouldn't be overly concerned about a lack of posts.

As a moderator on another forum we sometimes go for a week or more without any posts, and that's not uncommon with another site. While more frequent posting by members would be desirable, our daily read/view numbers indicate ongoing interest in the content, and that's sufficient for us to keep it running.

Yeh I dont think you would want posts just for the sake of posting something, lowers the quality of the content.
There is always something happening in the KRR shack

Today I updated the IP blocking regime so that only Australian, New Zealand and most Oceania countries can access the forum registration pages and have full access.  Visitors from other countries can now view the forum but not register easily.

There is the option of using the Contact Us link at bottom LHS ( http://www.ahrdf.net/forum/contact.php ) to request manual registration.  Ensure you supply your callsign, name and a valid email address when asking. The callsign WILL be checked for validity through Google and QRZ searches before the process is actually undertaken and will not be processed if this detail cannot be verified.  An initial password will be provided by return email to allow the first login, after which it can be altered through the User Control Panel. The delay will typically be 1 to 5 days for processing manual requests.

For persons not holding a current amateur licence and callsign, an "SWL login" can be provided but it will have lower 
a access level and be subject to moderation of any posts until proven to be a participant (rather than a spammer).

Doug, Admin

It seems that the most recent update of the forum software shifted the Login box down to the bottom of the screen. 
The relevant template has now been edited and it is now centre screen as of a few minutes ago..

Users may have to clear their browser cache (typically Control F5 and/or Shift F5) to achieve this view.

Doug, Admin

Hello Doug
Good to see the login box back in its correct place. It's a lot less hassle that way.
Ian

New for January 2018:  A new option has been provided for "mobile device" users, a mobile-friendly template accessed by using the URL http://mobile.ahrdf.net  - it does a redirection to the main forum after that but the on-screen views are different.  

Note that there are lots of the desktop version options missing under the mobile view, Latests Posts being the most obvious. It all has to do with the amount of screen real estate available on phones and tablets and since you can't fit everything, only the most basic Forum features are provided. Ditto, the Forum groups are listed but you need to "drill down" to get the individual topics and posts, again it is real estate.

If you see an "Accelerated Mobile Pages" option listed when you use the Options at top LHS, sorry but but that doesn't exist in this Forum setup.

Try it, bookmark it, comment upon its usefulness - but it will be staying so that the forum becomes more mobile-friendly in a world where they seem be becoming the defacto browser device for the younger generations and those oldies on the move.

The desktop view will continue to display the options you are used to seeing, along with retaining TapaTalk access.  

Also new: A BUY & SELL section under Miscellaneous, at least as a trial.  

If you have some radio/electronics bits you want to sell - or are specifically looking for - list the details here, noting that this is only a contact medium, not a sales outlet. List only your details (eg coded email address, ph number)  that you will allow public, as all 'browsers' (and search engines) can see what you post. PMs from other registered Forum members is encouraged.

• Don't list things here that should be on VKClassifieds. 
  
• Make your own payment & supply arrangements.
  
• Remember to edit your listing after you have sold/bought.
  

Doug, Admin

I have finally gotten to the activation of the SSL access to this Forum but have left it open (at this point) to allow both secure and non-secure address access.

For secure access, alter your bookmark/favorite to https://ahrdf.net
For non-secure access, the bookmark/favorite remains at http://ahrdf.net

The non-secure access will be removed in about a month or so, maybe less.

Doug, admin

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your efforts.

Just an FYI really - updated to the SSL URL and no problems encountered.

Using an out of date Chrome version. (Geez, I am slack )

Has the connection to Tapatalk been removed?