Blocking Gmail, yahoo and hotmail is just dumb
 

Luckily I could use http://meltmail.com/ to forward the email to my gmail.
But blocking the most common mail providers seems like a rather unorthodox and dumb way to prevent spam.

Especially since spammers can just do what I did, but most regular users won't have the knowledge, it's like the DRM equivalent for forums.

You didn't use the thread 5 down from this because...?

Theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to troll and die. :O:

Since I use gmail
 

I'm not into spam, nor trollers, but

I do use gmail, so I have to agree.

Go away, Honesty/Destiny/whatever. You're a troll.

I also use gmail. However, given the past few days, I think it is very clear why certain email servers are blocked. The simple fact is that when they are blocked, we see four or five 'bots per month. When they are not, we see four or five per day. The method is effective and efficient; nothing dumb or unorthodox about it.

'Nuff said.

Agreed...and thit is coming from someone with a few Hotmail accounts.

It's unfortunate, but as noted in the thread already started on this topic, every time those email providers are temporarily unblocked the forums get inundated with spambots.

They do not, to my knowledge, get inundated with legitimate new members using yahoo/hotmail/gmail email addies. So for Subsim overall, there does seem to be more value in blocking them than allowing them.

Surely there must be other ways to stop spam other than blocking email providers, captcha is working for other forums, why not this forum?

This is just going to piss of a lot of legit users.

Anyone remember the firestorm when we tried to institute a catchpa?

Again, we have been using the current method for years. It works well. It will continue to work well. If you are legit, you can use one of the other services. Consider it the Destiny of Honesty. Take Solace in that.

Subsim uses captcha on registration. ;)

Ah. Didn't know that. I never had to use one, but that was a decade ago. Well, I suppose that this renders the argument moot.

There's also a no-spam verification question thingy. :up:

Well, there ya go. Catchpas and questionaires are ineffective, as the spammers have found ways to circumvent them. And so Downley delivers the coup de grace to the complaint.

:shifty:

In the time you took to open this thread and complain you could have signed up for an alternate email account, registered to Subsim, and read a really long post. ;)

I've been here eight years, and I've seen maybe eight complaints. I've never used any of the big three, because of that very reason. They're a hotbed of spammers. And trolls.

Not really....if your a 'legit user' and value the forum and community you simply acquire an email addy that is acceptable.

I run a forum for my Guild Wars guild. I have it set up to notify me of a new member signing up to that forum.

I get several per DAY of accounts that seem to all end in .ru and comprised of usernames such as "asdeegofor" and such.

Surely such intelligent usernames aren't bots? [/sarcasm] I'm glad that they've not yet developed bots smart enough to circumvent the e-mail confirmation step of my forum's enrollment process.

And while I do use a gmail account, I also use a Verizon account as well as a University account.