Signature Permissions Unexpected Removal

[YamydeAragon]

I don't know if is just me or other forums posters are affected but today i just find out that my forums signature permissions have being suddenly removed. I found it when i wanted to add a nice new signature, that conform the regulations but it just will not show up cause seems like i have no signatures permissions anymore. Was this some mistake? Are the forums manager working on some forums revamp or anything similar?

PDT: Never mind! That picture took like half hour to show up.

[Macroscian]

I don't know if is just me or other forums posters are affected but today i just find out that my forums signature permissions have being suddenly removed. I found it when i wanted to add a nice new signature, that conform the regulations but it just will not show up cause seems like i have no signatures permissions anymore. Was this some mistake? Are the forums manager working on some forums revamp or anything similar?

PDT: Never mind! That picture took like half hour to show up.

Do you need it optimized? I can have a go at it if you wish.

[Frelorn]

As you may or may not have noticed, we have had a recent uptick in spam attacks here on the forums. In response we have added some new tools to the forums to help prevent this, and it appears that users with certain signatures are getting moderated because of this new filtering software. I am working to try to refine this but for now if you have and overly complicated or link heavy signature you may get moderated. I am working to get this fixed as soon as possible.

[Urwendil]

Although I don't have any pictures in my signature I've been unable to post since Saturday (Friday night forum time.) I don't think I'll be able to post this either but trying nonetheless...

[YamydeAragon]

As you may or may not have noticed, we have had a recent uptick in spam attacks here on the forums. In response we have added some new tools to the forums to help prevent this, and it appears that users with certain signatures are getting moderated because of this new filtering software. I am working to try to refine this but for now if you have and overly complicated or link heavy signature you may get moderated. I am working to get this fixed as soon as possible.

Thanks for the fast response. I do noticed the spam attacks. I ensure you that i go nutts trying to report all the spam threads several times a week every week. Thanks for working on a way to more efficiently address this issue. I will keep my signature at minimum to don't get accidentally filter out (you can see that right now is only 1 small none animated picture & a little sentence).

[Frelorn]

Although I don't have any pictures in my signature I've been unable to post since Saturday (Friday night forum time.) I don't think I'll be able to post this either but trying nonetheless...

I cant see why you are being moderated. Can you try removing your signature and posting again? It is either that or maybe that your title has a link in it. I am still trying to figure that out.

[gripply]

I really appreciate that you're on top of the spamming and griefing. World chat on my server was being attacked yesterday, and it even spilled into glff for a while. I'm glad to see it's quiet today. Quiet is better than spam scrolling. Losing signatures is a small price to pay for keeping the community healthy. There are several negative in-game behaviors I have noticed lately:

1. lfg followed by epic fail, and loudly criticizing the people who joined as noobs in world chat, or other mind tricks like several groups I joined with leaders from a specific kin asked me to "go tank" (captain). I'ts impossible to do that without several pieces of alternate armor. They yelled this at me repeatedly during fights, as if it was even possible, then they sat down, literally sat down and took no more part in the fight (they were a champion). I now put on ignore anyone from that kin as soon as I identify them.

2. inane chatter scroll in chat "where are you?' "over here" "where is here?" "idk wherever you are" "bet I can find her faster than you" "oh yeah..." endlessly for hours. People asking a question are ignored, lff requests ignored, wts ignored... etc because people just leave the channel.

3. Training. People can sometimes train scout riders on you in MT or other riders while you're inside the orc camp because they break their leash, then they can't get out of the camp and while they're walking around tents, they aggro you. Training is an old old mmo trolling trick. After you've cleared the archers, it's easy for someone to run into camp and leash a scout (unleash) because the camp trolls and orcs are on foot and you can out ride them, head for a break in the wall and leash them all. This has happened to me twice in the past two days, and I'm only one person. The encounter should break if you enter an orc camp at any time.

4. Asking fake questions in chat, especially directed at one person, to try and catch people in a misunderstanding about the game. Example: "Can someone make me a Supreme Evade Essence?" then saying they're leveling an alt and can't check Dol Amroth right now, who makes them? etc... This happens after someone has been helpful in chat a few seconds ago. Taking advantage of the helpfulness of others to waste their time. People who are a bit rusty on the mechanics after a break from the game might easily go to DA and check for them "to be nice."

5 endless link posting "you should see this video" and such nonsense

The moderation is a small price to pay for a better community. People aren't fooled by these tricks more than once and it's sad that I have to inspect anyone who asks for lff now because of all the trolls. Anyone anonymous has zero chance of my replying and that's a sad statement to make about a game so community, virtue and heroism oriented. Pranking is basically a power play and lulz has nothing to do with it. Moderation is the right response. Personally I think F2P should be totally abandoned because then the trolls would have to pay for vip to start trouble.

On the upside: we're worth trolling. We have a good community here and they hate to see that, it gets under their skin, it's valuable, enough to attempt to hurt it. If you don't know who "they" are, they're the conformists who read things like Encyclopedia Dramatica and 4chan. They all conform in their methods and opinions that the world should be poked and made fun of. Games are a common target. If you're feeling like lately there's a concerted effort to make everyone feel dismay, and to destroy politeness and trust, there is. I'm glad that if it happens here, it gets moderated.

[Urwendil]

I cant see why you are being moderated. Can you try removing your signature and posting again? It is either that or maybe that your title has a link in it. I am still trying to figure that out.

Thanks for looking into it. Trying with emptied signature...

[Frelorn]

Thanks for looking into it. Trying with emptied signature...

Hmm that did not work. I am going to try temporarily removing the links from your username and title to see if that helps.

[AmazingX]

I'm having this same issue. My signature was a single picture of my 2 main toons.

[YamydeAragon]

I'm having this same issue. My signature was a single picture of my 2 main toons.

Well this is the final decision until further notices about signatures (may be never again):

Due to security reasons and recent abuse by a large number of members here on the forums, we have disabled the use of forum signatures for the time being. We do not have an ETA for when they will be activated again.

Thanks to the people that can't follow simple guidelines! That is why we can't have anything nice!

[Frelorn]

Not totally related to the spam but we were having some issues with users trying to put bad things in signatures and others who were circumventing the rules we had in place. As of this morning I have disabled signatures until such time as I can get the issues resolved.

[YamydeAragon]

Not totally related to the spam but we were having some issues with users trying to put bad things in signatures and others who were circumventing the rules we had in place. As of this morning I have disabled signatures until such time as I can get the issues resolved.

By the way, the spam bot is just back.

[Urwendil]

Hmm that did not work. I am going to try temporarily removing the links from your username and title to see if that helps.

Testing...

[dmark101]

Not totally related to the spam but we were having some issues with users trying to put bad things in signatures and others who were circumventing the rules we had in place. As of this morning I have disabled signatures until such time as I can get the issues resolved.

you should be able to disable signatures for the specific users. if not, you can create a usergroup, remove signature privileges for that group, then place the offenders in the group.

the spam stuff. there are literally a TON of great add-ons for vBulletin to reduce the amount of spam bots on the site. you guys may want to look into that.

[Olgomil]

Not totally related to the spam but we were having some issues with users trying to put bad things in signatures and others who were circumventing the rules we had in place. As of this morning I have disabled signatures until such time as I can get the issues resolved.

Then not sure why my signature is showing... its because is only text without any link or image?

Sergio :-)

[Urwendil]

Testing...

That was moderated too. Retry...

[Laerien]

Mine is a centered text I used for testing

[dwarfThar]

Mine seems a bit messed up, too

[Marancil]

I want my signature back.

I used a table for text positioning and an external link to an image I host on my own website. And that image is not even linking to that site. I see some of you above have a remaining signature field, flawed but still. Mine is entirely gone, can not even see "Signature" in the Profile settings. Why.

The best tool against spam is better moderation and more people watching the forums. Automation and spam protection only goes so far. I know, I have been involved in forum administration and moderation for 18 years.

[gildhur]

I only had colored text in my signature, but BB Code has been turned off.

[Amorey]

Not totally related to the spam but we were having some issues with users trying to put bad things in signatures and others who were circumventing the rules we had in place. As of this morning I have disabled signatures until such time as I can get the issues resolved.

Why are some people signatures still showing while others have had everything removed ? I only had my character name centered and color coded linked to the Laurelin Archives a site for the Laurelin Community that I run and now everything is gone, in contrast I already found a user that still keep his signature including code and link active


EDIT :

My 'Edit Signature' link also vanished from my settings - My signature was very simple, just text, color/font coded , just my character name

[Vovo]

Not totally related to the spam but we were having some issues with users trying to put bad things in signatures and others who were circumventing the rules we had in place. As of this morning I have disabled signatures until such time as I can get the issues resolved.

Disabling signatures pleases me. Between the spam and the signatures, finding genuine posts, and then being able to spot the actual message, of genuine posts, was getting rather tedious. The forum is so much easier to read without them. I hope you don't allow them back.

[Marancil]

Disabling signatures pleases me. Between the spam and the signatures, finding genuine posts, and then being able to spot the actual message, of genuine posts, was getting rather tedious. The forum is so much easier to read without them. I hope you don't allow them back.

You are not wrong, in some forums readability is highly encouraged and avatars and signatures viewed as disrupting elements and reduced or even disabled. However, in this case, I see most signatures as indicators of who the player is, what the player have in regards to characters, level, profession and what not. That information may be useful to others, in my case I try to follow that.

Having said that, you will of course always see spammish signatures with huge images and many external links. This can be controlled. In most versatile forum softwares (this is running on vBulletin) you can limit the amount of links, you can limit image sizes and you can limit amount of text in signatures.

[Harla]

Most forums I know of, pretty much all, in fact, have limits built in on restricting the number of images you can have in a signature, the size by data of those images, the size by data of the total signature, the size by length and height of individual images, a base character count, base line count, and possibly a disallowance of links.

My question is, if a notable portion of users on this forum were abusing that, then why were these kinds of restrictions, which the vast majority of online forums carry, even tiny home-spun or amateur ones, not in place here? This is the forum of a professional company running an MMO, how on earth were such rules not in place to begin with, when such limiters are considered standard just about everywhere? I understand that we won't be given an answer to the question "Whose massive oversight was that?", but it's a question that needs to be asked and answered on Turbine's side of things at least.

Clearly, whatever measure was put in place to stop the new user section from being drowned in spam-bots... hasn't worked. There's a new flood up there right now, and it's an eyesore. It's most definitely NOT what any of us would want new users, who are also potentially new players, to be seeing here. It hasn't worked so far, and all that has been achieved is that the vast majority of legitimate users, the greater majority thereof who had completely innocuous and sensible signatures, have had their sigs disabled and removed. At this stage, you've punished the innocent and not even fixed the problem by doing so.

To those saying that you're happy with the forceful disabling of signatures: shame on you. You've always had the option of turning them off if you didn't want to see them. If you're celebrating this now, then why didn't you just click that button years ago? Unless, of course, you think that those with innocent, inoffensive and otherwise rule-abiding signatures ought not to be punished for them... in which case stop celebrating it.

This is not a professional response to a situation that in itself should never have been given the window to occur in the first place, and it makes one black mark look all the blacker for the companionship.