Forum registrations open by member invitation only
We had a slew of posts from bot accounts today, and I've changed the registration process.
I have closed the option for members of the public to register themselves.
Instead, you, as an existing member, can send an invitation to someone you wish to invite to join TSF. Any existing member can do this. You should find an option when you click on your profile icon.
This isn't ideal, but nor is having a bunch of fake accounts open every day and flooding the boards with spam.
There are some security measures in place, reCaptcha and email verification, but these are clearly no longer sufficient to keep spammers/bots at bay.
Comments
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I saw those postings. I knew you were going to remove them. Why would someone post a lot of lyrics like they did?
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RDM,
Thanks for all your hard work in maintaining the site for decent folk, it's appreciated.
Sid
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@robwills Beats me Rob! I can only imagine that after establishing their "credentials" by posting lyrics they start posting advertising or something like that? There doesn't seem to be any value to anyone in just posting a heap of AI lyrics. Maybe someone just gets off on being "clever".
@sidshovel Thanks Sid. It's why you have an admin!
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Thanks Owen! I needed to inform you cause this time was a damn massive one and it took place while I was online, more and more fake stuff….yuck0
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I have switched the user registration across to "approval" mode. New users can self-register, but they won't be able to do anything until I review and approve them. We'll see how many we get and whether I can handle the volume or not.
This means that the "invitation mode" I talked about earlier is no longer in use, and you won't be able to issue any invitations to people now.
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Good move RDM
Sid
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How many registrations do you get, like a month? I ask because there are so many musicians "out there" that would love to be able to post their original songs for review and review songs of others. I'm talking like thousands per month would register if they knew of your site. If that would be good you certainly have one of the few, if any these days, of such sites. Then monetize it. It could do very well.
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Monetization would very likely keep the bots down! That's a big step though, and not one I'm keen to make.
In terms of new members, it's been about half a dozen a day, though most are fake. My concern is that the fake ones could very easily spike. Once you've got an automated process you can potentially do an arbitrarily high number if you want to.
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If musicians knew about your site it would take off and you could easily control registration to only legitimate people. You need to market it and make your own luck here. Like hooking up with Bandcamp and other related sites. There are millions and millions of musicians in the world. And many of them would like to get and give feedback on original songs that are not promoted by large label and distributors. I'm absolutely convinced you have got a potential gold mine here.
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Maybe there's a business opportunity here for you, Rob?
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Possibly. I can certainly do the marketing. I know someone who knows the technical aspects of websites. They were telling me once that having a website with many users presents some issues, obviously cost being one. I will speak with them but it won't be until later next week.
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Just a quick update to say the new review and approve system is working so far. I've rejected around 30 applications and approved 1 since switching it over, and the process so far has been quick and easy.
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I've only just seen this so I'm a bit late to the party. Difficult to know how best to play it. I can see that being swamped by bots could be a nightmare. At the same, time we need new members.
I only wish I had some ideas to offer here. I appreciate your good work Owen.
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We're ok at the moment I think Chris. People can still apply, but they need to be approved by me first. I'm getting about 50 bot applications a day, but those are (currently) easy to spot so it's not taking me long. Only issue might be if I'm away for more than a few days at a time.
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Howdy, Stranger!