Just to clarify a little concerning the spam trap problem Bruce encountered, for which I apologize but do not have a quick fix at this time...As we mention in the board FAQ page, a "403 Forbidden" message means there is some specific problem with the message you are trying to post...usually a word or phrase was found that is typical of recent spam attempts, although it could also be due to defective HTTP headers sent from poorly coded browsers (CCleaner, for example). It does not mean that you, personally, are blocked from posting.
The 403 error message won't tell you the exact reason, because that would give the spamb*stards too obvious a clue for getting around the trap. I don't mind discussing some details of the trap with you here, or on the FAQ page, because if there's one thing most spammers will never do, it's to actually READ any actual content of the sites they seek to pollute with their junk posts! Only a few spambots apparently even bother logging error messages, but because some do, I don't want to just hand them too many clues in the errors.
As the FAQ says, the thing to do is not keep posting the same thing repeatedly, because that only makes the software more sensitive to whatever it deemed suspicious in the first place. Instead, contact the trouble reporting address in the FAQ to let me know the date and time of the error and, if possible, the text of the message you tried to post. When Bruce did that, it took scarcely a minute with the board log files for me to identify the problem.
Over the past year, we've had thousands of attempts to post ads here for artificial intelligence products or services, virtually all of which are scams anyway. (I mean, c'mon guys, if the very first thing you do is lie about your IP address, why would I believe a single word you say about your product!?) As a result, the spam trap is on high alert for text containing the top level domain ".ai", but it's not quite as smart as it needs to distinguish the TLD at the end of a URL from other text within one that coincidentally contains a dot followed by the letters "ai".
Thus, when Bruce wrote the AirNav link, the board focused in on it like so:
"http://www.airnav.com" and immediately rejected it.
(So how did I get away with writing it here, given that even the admin and moderators have to go through the same spam trap? Easy. I merely posted a "clean" version, then hopped into my RETARDIT and used my Amazing Webmaster Time Travel Powers to fix this text in the future before revealing it to the world in what is now the more recent past. Ta-da! Try that, evil but lazy Spamb*stards.)
I have a better, smarter, more flexible approach to spam trapping in the works for the future forumboard, but it's too big a job to retrofit into this version. This one will become become less sensitive to AI-related triggers over time, but probably not for another week or two.
73,
John
