switching to "only registered members being able to view attachments"

[Jmk89]

I have noticed the increase in guest numbers recently and wondered what the cause might be and what precautionary steps ought to be taken. 
I agree with what George is doing.  Genuine aeromodellists (as they were often called in the 1930s) should have no problem with registering. However, genuine guests should be allowed to get a flavour of the content here so they can decide whether or not to join.

I suspect this is an issue that the main aeromodelling.gr site doesn't face because its main language is not English, so, despite the quality of the content, it isn't viewed as very " marketable" by AI bots etc.

Perhaps a Captcha verification that the user is human might be a good next step if the guests issue isn't resolved by the no access to attachments protocol.

[ramses]

Ramses has his pictures saved in his own website, so he posts links to them, that is why he can post more than 4 in a message.
If he can, he could write more about it.

Sure!
My images are indeed already online; I link to the photos in my buildthreads:
So you have to upload your photo`s to a place on the internet (free photo site, own website, etc).

Then starting the post:
Select a space in between the text where you want to appear the photo.
Then press the photo icon:



Paste the URL of the location of the photo on the internet:



When done, you will see the URL in between the text of your post:



When you have finished the post and publish it, the photo will appear in between the text where you placed it:



Cheers, Ramses

[Prosper]

Thanks for the guide Ramses.

A mere 56 guests at present! They're slacking!

I hope Captcha won't become necessary - I have real trouble with that business (eyesight). Maybe this wave of 'scraping' or whatever it is will fade.

Stephen.

[g_kandylakis]

Captcha is not an oprion to be considered. It helps little when dealing with unregistered guests. Actually it already exists when searching etc.

Guests cannot post, cannot send private messages cannot overload the forum basic operations. They cannot bother other members directly.

They can increase traffic which might be a problem with the hosting company, which did happen in HPA II and Bruce wrote to me about it.

The worst case scenario is for me to lock the forum to members only. Nothing will be possible for outsiders except registering and logging in (necessary when you are a member wanting to get in...).

Drawback: no legitimate outsider can see what is inside the forum in order to consider registering or not. So it stays like a closed club, which is neither the intention nor the wish of all of us.

The bots cannot register (I think/hope) because of the questions, plus any presence of a bot would immediately become apparent and they would be deleted.

So, no big worries for now, please.

It was just unusual and worth keeping an eye on.

George

[Lastwoodsman]

Well George, you have to try something,  so go right ahead,  you are making the right choice.

Lastwoodsman
Richard

58 guests  2 users

[PeeTee]

If the unidentified users aren't doing any harm why don't we just ignore them? I note that at the moment it's only me and 120 'guests'