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Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 2:37 pm
by Alan Baxter
Our spammer members have found another way to advertise themselves, this time through their username in the Birthday announcements sections of the Board Index and the login confirmation page. Could the board admin disable this birthday announcement feature? Example:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2525/378 ... 4da8e0.jpg
Re: Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:06 pm
by Giorgio Maone
Done, thanks.
Re: Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:14 pm
by therube
Never even knew there was such a thing.
(I rarely visit the front page.)
Re: Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 3:34 pm
by Alan Baxter
Thank you, Giorgio.
therube wrote:(I rarely visit the front page.)
You don't know what you're missing. It used to rival a web search for info on drugs and pron. Gone now, thanks to Giorgio and the user who brought it to my attention. I just don't read those usernames carefully enough and with enough imagination.
Re: Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:15 am
by Grumpy Old Lady
The Newest Member part of the Statistics is also a haven for live spam links.
Re: Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:55 pm
by Alan Baxter
I've noticed that too. The "Newest Member" field should be eliminated. I wouldn't mind if the whole statistics row had to be removed to implement that.
My objection to the Newest Member field and the Birthdays row that was previously eliminated is that they're presented to me when I'm not looking for them. Their mere existence in the Members listing isn't a problem. I do think the Members listing and the Viewing Profile pages should be tagged so they're not scanned by search engines, but apparently that's already be the case. They don't show up in a Google site search.
Re: Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:11 pm
by Grumpy Old Lady
Ah then, if the ever-present G bot doesn't dig that deep for links then who cares if the front page looks dorky ;-)
The only other consideration is if there's ever a malicious link set there for the unwary registered member I suppose - - and then even that's a vanishingly small risk if it's in a NS forum, eh.
Re: Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:34 pm
by Giorgio Maone
Hidden as an HTML comment.
Re: Disable the Birthdays announcements
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:42 am
by Tom T.
Who would want to put their birthday up -- even without a year -- in this era of identity theft? There can be other clues or sources for the year.
If a site insists on my giving one, I make one up. I think I have four different birthdays on Yahoo. None are real, but think of all the cake!
(dangerous feature -- get rid of it.)
