Board Improvement - Birthdays

[Quirquie]

I am guessing the board admin has no idea how badly the birthday system is being abused on this board. I first noticed something was fishy with the birthday list when I was sure I had seen a name on it previously. I then copied that name from the birthday section along with the date and their age. This particular person has at least 1 birthday every week and their age keeps changing. Out of all the birthdays listed for yesterday and today, only 1 of them was not an ad spammer. It seems some ad spammers never post an ad and just keep changing their birthdays so their name is linked on the board and clicking on it leads you to their profile where their web link can be seen. It is very easy to turn off the birthday function so they can no longer abuse it. Both of the people who posted 21 spam messages on the board overnight are also listed on today's birthday list, so even after you get rid of their posts their names will stay there all day long! I thought about adding a poll to this post so users could vote on turning it off, but I am afraid the ad spammers greatly outnumber actual users and they would win it! I do not know if it is possible to turn off the website link in profiles, but if it can be done, they would probably just stick it in another field in their profile anyway.

If I was the board admin I would disable birthdays all together.

[Magna]

If I'm right, the web software automatically posts birthdays if someone entered theirs when signing up. Some spammers include a birthday (and other fake information, like hobbies, occupation, where they live, etc.) so they automatically show up there. We just happen to have a lot of spammers who signed up as members and who gave a birthday.

I don't know if it's even possible for the site admin to shut off the birthday function, but for now I'd suggest just ignoring it unless you see it's the birthday of someone you know. Btw, there are lots of inactive members whose birthdays show up too.

[Quirquie]

It is possible to turn off birthdays: ACP --> Server Configuration - Load Settings --> Enable Birthday Listing = No

I looked it up before I suggested it.

[Magna]

OK thanks. I'll leave this up and let other people give their input as well.

Btw, the owner often takes quite a long time to respond, so even if we ask for the birthday function to be turned off, it might not happen any time soon.

[RedRox]

Yes but the mods have no access to the board settings and the board owner is often largely unreachable and/or unresponsive.

[Quirquie]

I actually knew that because I do read so much on here, I just wanted to put it out there because I know it can be done if the admin chooses to do it.

[Magna]

If anyone would like to weigh in on this (for or against including birthdays), please do that within the next couple of days. If the consensus is the birthday function should go, I'll email the board owner then. Thanks

[Quirquie]

It is looking like people don't care one way or the other, it would be nice to see someone other than myself have an opinion on this though. I have to admit, I don't care if they are there or not, but since the ad spammers seem to be the only ones getting anything from it, that is why I think it should go.

Maybe I am just too observant, but I haven't had a lot of time this week to read the forum, and yet I still noticed 2 different names appear on the birthday listing twice since I posted the original message! It is not like I am trying to see things that are wrong, I just can't help but to notice it.

[RedRox]

In all the years I was active here, I think I only had a handful of people wish me a Happy Birthday when they noticed it at the bottom of the page. I honestly don't think most people pay any attention to it all. So if deleting the function gives the lowest life forms on the planet one less avenue for their unfortunate existence to present itself, I'm all for getting rid of it!

[Healthybound]

If getting rid of the birthdays will eliminate all this stupid spamming, then go for it! It's a shame that they have infiltrated this forum just to try and sell a product when we are earnestly looking for support for and from one another.

[Magna]

I went ahead and sent the email.

Unfortunately I don't think it will stop or slow down the spamming. The only likely effect is that maybe people won't accidentally go to some member's page thinking it's a legitimate member, only to find out they have a bunch of spam links there.

[RedRox]

True Dat!

[Magna]

The birthday list is still in place. Just an illustration of how long it can take to get changes made. Sorry, folks!

[Kimboroni]

They don't have any problem making changes to the board that involve revenue streams! (such as the annoyingly large ads that recently started appearing )