As so many vBulletin run sites are, we have constant issues with spam and people trying to take advantage of the services offered here. To combat that, a number of steps have been taken:
* Every few weeks, I will go through a mass prune dormant accounts. Those are accounts with no posts that were registered more than a few days prior to that time. I do this because many spam accounts will simply register on the site and never post. They'll use profiles, signatures, PMs, etc, to spam.
* Permission adjustments have been made for "new" members. When you register on the site, you're placed into a new members group. This group has no access to private messages, signatures, profile editing, or attachments. After a period of a few days and a certain number of posts (less than 15), the account is automatically promoted to a registered member group with full permission across the site.
* For a short time, we implemented a plugin that checked against known spammer information (IP, email, chosen account name) and denied registrations based on any match. It worked well but unfortunately honest people were flagged. That has since been removed to avoid hassle for those incorrectly flagged during the registration process. If you've experienced any issues registering because of this, please try again.
Hopefully everyone understands why this is necessary. I hate spam as much as the next person, and these steps were taken to save you all from as much of it as possible.
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, email me at
chris@iphonedevsdk.com. Thanks.
Chris