Site Update: Nov 2023

[Bradley]

Hi Everyone,

In the last few weeks, the amount of scammers hitting the forum has hit an all time high. We are working behind the scenes to try to clean this up, including new access restrictions for registration and posting new threads. Please don't send money via insecure methods especially on items that are supposed to be shipped.

Bradley

 

[Tops]

Thanks for securing the forum.
Noticing that I cannot access conversations, is this a temporary thing?

 

[Bradley]

Thanks for pointing this out @Tops. There was a configuration error with conversations, as they are also now restricted as well. It should be resolved, let me know if you have any issues accessing them.

 

[tag]

Thanks for all your hard work Bradley!

 

[Tops]

Thanks for pointing this out @Tops. There was a configuration error with conversations, as they are also now restricted as well. It should be resolved, let me know if you have any issues accessing them.

All good now, thanks and thanks again for keeping the machine running!

 

[Bradley]

Also, to help protect phone numbers and email addresses, threads in the For Sale / Wanted sections are going to be automatically deleted after 180 days of inactivity. Threads in these sections already automatically close after 90 days of inactivity.

 

[LaLi]

threads in the For Sale / Wanted sections are going to be automatically deleted after 180 days of inactivity.

Oh my, there went a ton of historical information (pictures especially)! Essentially a whole database flushed down

I assume there is no way of accessing it anymore?

_

 

[Bradley]

Oh my, there went a ton of historical information (pictures especially)! Essentially a whole database flushed down

I assume there is no way of accessing it anymore?

_

@LaLi Nothing was flushed! The database is no longer publicly accessible but it is still on the server. In recent years, old classifieds were no longer "saved" for posterity, as the original poster could delete the entire thread when they were done with the listing. Unfortunately, leaving up old ads leaves out personal information along with pictures and details for scammers to recirculate. The phone numbers and emails listed could potentially cause us problems with GDPR in Europe, as we don't have an automated way to delete phone numbers and email addresses randomly mentioned within posts. (We can delete an entire account and any personal information contained in that). Generally, I do not recommend posting your primary email or phone number directly in a public thread.

These changes are filed under the "This is why we can't have nice things" file... :/

There are a lot of new rules in place on our WAF (web application firewall) to help eliminate bad actors. I'll be keeping an eye to see the impact.