Shutting this down

Post by **RyanVM** » Tue Oct 15, 2019 9:31 am

Hey all, after logging in today for the first time in awhile and seeing over 10,000 spam posts awaiting moderation and seeing very little in the way of new posts lately, it's got me thinking long and hard about whether it's worth keeping this site alive anymore. I'm strongly considering making everything read-only and stopping new registrations.

It's been a heck of a run, but all things eventually come to an end. I'll give it a couple days to think it over more. Let me know if you have a reason to strongly object.

Post by **5eraph** » Tue Oct 15, 2019 6:49 pm

These six now deleted offenders had between 1,000 and 2,000 posts each: BrianMig, Davinfoew, Derikki, Kevenet, Ramondok and RogerHooma. The admin panel choked on all of them until I started deleting their posts a few at a time to a more manageable number. Half of these users were mass-posting within the past five days, usually with a few minutes between each post to avoid automated detection.

Also, had to just delete users this time. The "reading/moving posts, then banning users" routine was taking way too long.

Sorry for the absence.

bphlpt · Post by **bphlpt** » Wed Oct 16, 2019 1:29 am

We've missed you 5eraph! I hope everything is well with you. You too, Ryan.

I understand your feelings about not much activity over the last year or more. It seems the same slump has happened at MSFN and Wincert, among other technical forums. I guess a lot of it is because the decreasing ability to modify the newer MS OS, and the decreasing user base of the older MS OS. There will always be a "market" for these kinds of forums: there are still die hard users of DOS and Win 98, after all, and I'm in no mood to move on from Win 7, not to mention those that favor Win 2K and Win XP.

If it's mainly the aggravation of the spammers, could stricter spam blocking and new member postings be put into effect? I know of another phpBB board that had some success in using ZB Block. You could even no longer allow guests to browse the forum, ie require membership to even see what is here. Since the activity has dropped, the added workload might not be too bad, especially if there were more than just Ryan who had access to approve any new members. If none of those approaches are appealing, I appreciate that you are planning to keep the board as read-only, at least for a while, to not lose the info that's here.

I hope the board survives, in one form or another. It holds good memories for me as one of the very first boards where I really became involved.

Cheers and Regards, my friends,
John

Post by **mooms** » Thu Oct 17, 2019 2:22 pm

Hi to 3 of you (and all other who read this)

I have stopped trying to contain the spam because the moderation tools are so cumbersome to use, we can't even delete al post by a member once he's flagged as a spammer...

Legit new posts are lost in thousand of spam post sadly...
I also hope the board will survive...

i430vx · Post by **i430vx** » Thu Oct 17, 2019 5:52 pm

Hi. I may not be very active here currently but I do read threads here oftentimes. I would like to voice my support for keeping the site running.

=[FEAR]=JIGSAW · Post by **=[FEAR]=JIGSAW** » Fri Oct 18, 2019 4:06 am

Im happy with whatever you decide.

Keep the board as read-only would be nice, as it would be sad to loose the valuable info that's here

LoneCrusader · Post by **LoneCrusader** » Sat Oct 19, 2019 1:37 am

It would be a great loss to see this place shut down... Don't let a bunch of spammers destroy such a great repository of information.

harkaz · Post by **harkaz** » Sat Oct 19, 2019 8:42 am

You could disable new registrations, possibly allowing new registrations only by invitation, and leave the forum online. Also delete all spammers.
There is a great amount of info here, and would be such a pity to completely shut it down.

maxtorix · Post by **maxtorix** » Sat Oct 19, 2019 12:36 pm

@RyanVM: Why are you actually going after this kind of members and deleting their posted s*its?!
You as admin, must know how the cyber world is functioning. What you are planning to do if you are facing with an army of bots that are obvious trying to kill the forum and according of your opinion they are actually successfully doing so.

I remember that in time when I want to register to the site, my registration wasn't approved immediately but I have to "pull" some "connections" via WinCert how you - the admin will see my application, and approve my legit membership. Nowdays obviously that kind of checkouts are not needed, and you and we as members have this chaos.

We all know that you as admin have master privileges of the site, so you can:
- block these members of posting, block their IPs, their MACs, delete their accounts... even block using of Tor Browser.
- So why you make this pathetic post?!

It is obvious that this forum is the most helpful for Windows enthusiasts for a very long time, and of course we the members are against of shutting it down!

But if you intend to do so because of reasons known only to you, then there is nothing that we can do about it.

All the best!

dencorso · Post by **dencorso** » Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:55 pm

Hey 5eraph! How good to read you again! I was suspecting you weren't even among us anymore! So many of my frends went the way of the ENIAC this year... RLoew@MSFN being one of the more recent among them... I was more and more depressed, those days! Hope you're all right! You, too, RyanVM! Good to hear from you, too!

harkaz wrote: ↑
Sat Oct 19, 2019 8:42 am
You could disable new registrations, possibly allowing new registrations only by invitation, and leave the forum online. Also delete all spammers. There is a great amount of info here, and would be such a pity to completely shut it down.

+1! I think closing the forum for new registrations whatsoever, and adding members, if any, just by invitation of an active member (that is not a zero poster or a 1-post marvel) should be enough to protect the forum from spam and obviate the need to close. There are too few places on the net worth going those days, and they are getting more scarce still, as time goes by... and there are really too many good things here to just allow it going down the memory hole... let's keep the fire burning my friends!

Hlafordlaes · Post by **Hlafordlaes** » Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:59 am

dencorso wrote: ↑
Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:55 pm
Hey 5eraph! How good to read you again! I was suspecting you weren't even among us anymore! So many of my frends went the way of the ENIAC this year... RLoew@MSFN being one of the more recent among them... I was more and more depressed, those days! Hope you're all right! You, too, RyanVM! Good to hear from you, too!

harkaz wrote: ↑
Sat Oct 19, 2019 8:42 am
You could disable new registrations, possibly allowing new registrations only by invitation, and leave the forum online. Also delete all spammers. There is a great amount of info here, and would be such a pity to completely shut it down.
+1! I think closing the forum for new registrations whatsoever, and adding members, if any, just by invitation of an active member (that is not a zero poster or a 1-post marvel) should be enough to protect the forum from spam and obviate the need to close. There are too few places on the net worth going those days, and they are getting more scarce still, as time goes by... and there are really too many good things here to just allow it going down the memory hole... let's keep the fire burning my friends!

+1 This.

I am a longtime user, even if I cannot recall if I have ever posted here. I am today in the midst of slipstreaming XP once again, as I have a new Retro build (socket 775), spanning 98SE to Win 7, and I don't like the old Media Center CD I made in 2013 for this. I most certainly hope the possible remedy above is adopted.

In fact, about to retry harkaz's update pack, since I seem to have botched it. Onepiece's is giving me errors, and user_hidden's pack doesn't have DotNet, which always makes me spend days trying to remember how I got it to work the last time around.

And since I may uniquely be able to address those who have done so much for so many years and actually have them see it, please accept my heartfelt thanks to you all in this thread for all that you have done over the years. From a VP6 duallie in 2006 through many intervening setups, you guys were there for me. Pat on the back and tip o' the hat.

wimc · Post by **wimc** » Sun Oct 20, 2019 2:07 pm

Way too much information just to disappear.

Another vote for NOT shutting this down.

Mcinwwl · Post by **Mcinwwl** » Sun Oct 20, 2019 4:21 pm

Not sure which possibilities this board engine gives you,but since we're dealing with 6 accounts with thousands of posts, maybe a daily/hourly limit of posts for newbies?
Even if this is not feasible, you might do as others suggested, make this board a read-only one until case is solved.
There's also an option of moving to other board system - not sure if you have time or are there any people with appropriate skills you trust enough to help you, but getting this combined with option above might be worth it.
I know I'm not a regular user of RyanVM Board, but this board is just a vast knowledge-base, and lot of its vast tomes are not available outside here. We all die-hard old systems users create a wide net of many boards, an information flow organism. I can't count how often someone on MSFN, where I usually reside, cited source from here. Getting it deleted would be too great loss.

dencorso wrote: ↑
Sat Oct 19, 2019 4:55 pm
Hey 5eraph! How good to read you again! I was suspecting you weren't even among us anymore! So many of my frends went the way of the ENIAC this year... RLoew@MSFN being one of the more recent among them... I was more and more depressed, those days!

Reading such I always wonder how Roffen is doing...

Tripredacus · Post by **Tripredacus** » Mon Oct 21, 2019 10:07 am

There is a big difference between disabling registration/archiving forums and shutting a site down. Make sure you are clear on what you mean...

This forum software should support referral registration. It is a registration method that 1: must have the new user be referred here by another user (they type a name in a field) and 2: registration must be approved by an admin. However, in order for this to work, you'll have to solve the other problem you have been facing: forum staff activity.

adric · Post by **adric** » Tue Oct 22, 2019 7:11 am

Hi 5eraph,

Hope all is well on your side.

Hi RyanVM,

Hope all is well on your side too. IMO the forum should not be killed.

GH0st · Post by **GH0st** » Tue Oct 22, 2019 10:52 am

I can see the forum is barely used now, with the popularity of the older OS's disappearing, it makes sense to close down. Then factor in the aggravation of the spammers and also what ever it costs you to host the site, including the cost of the software. Makes even more sense!

That said, would be such a shame to lose all the history here ... hard work by all!

I support what ever choice the board owner makes. Might want to consider if "MSFN Forum" would make a sub-forum for us, and move some of the projects over there. Possibly keeping this open, read only, for another year or so. Depending on cost to you.

Edit to add: Thank you Ryan and moderators, for the many years, 15+ years I have been a reader of the forums, getting the update packs and such. I never became a member until the uSP4 project came around. Was awesome to be a part of this!!!!

Than you all!!!

Post by **mooms** » Tue Oct 22, 2019 1:37 pm

Yeah, sadly this forum is going down slowly since a few years.
At least I hope all the knowledge can be saved somewhere if it is shut down, maybe on Internet Archive ?

johnrw · Post by **johnrw** » Tue Oct 22, 2019 2:41 pm

You can use a few easily implemented strategies to fight them spammers. Fight man, FIGHT!
Yes, I haven't been around in quite a while... but I don't want it GONE!
But whatever you decide... I will have to live with... but if you ask me?
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT while your heart still beats.

mukke · Post by **mukke** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 11:50 pm

Hlafordlaes wrote: ↑
Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:59 am
+1 This.

I am a longtime user, even if I cannot recall if I have ever posted here. [...]
And since I may uniquely be able to address those who have done so much for so many years and actually have them see it, please accept my heartfelt thanks to you all in this thread

or wherever you are - you know who you are!

for all that you have done over the years.

Quoting the above as (nonnative) it is not easy finding appropriate words expressing my appreciation.

johnrw wrote: ↑
Tue Oct 22, 2019 2:41 pm
Fight man, FIGHT!
Yes, I haven't been around in quite a while... but I don't want it GONE!
But whatever you decide... I will have to live with... but if you ask me?
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT while your heart still beats.

aouuu!!

mockingbird · Post by **mockingbird** » Mon Oct 28, 2019 11:45 pm

I thought about you sir recently, and about this forum, and the possibility of it shutting down eventually. I say yes, shut it down. It would be selfish for us to ask you to keep it running. What's out there is out there, and nothing new will be released. Not to wax philosophical or anything, but societies, even online societies require some sort of continuum of interpersonal association. It would be disingenuous for any one of us here to claim that this exists.

I have been frequenting the forum for the past few months and there have almost without exception been no new posts.

If anyone of those here advocating keeping the forum alive wishes to invest in the hosting and administration, and you trust that person enough to give them our logons, then I say do it.

Don't let this interfere with your life though.

sparty411 · Post by **sparty411** » Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:10 pm

I've never posted here, but I have been learning a lot about older MS operating systems by the way of reading past posts, etc.. It is your decision to make, but it goes without saying that this forum hosts a wealth of a knowledge, and it would be a shame for it to disappear.

Dibya · Post by **Dibya** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 1:04 am

5eraph is back , good to see that .
I will be willing to be a moderator for deleting spam.
Closing new registration shall be enough to block spammer .
RyanVM has lots of information for use , it will be a pity to turn it off completely

SherylinRM1 · Post by **SherylinRM1** » Mon Nov 04, 2019 2:19 pm

I have been coming here for many, many years now and registered just to say PLEASE do not close this down.
Thank you.

feroz12 · Post by **feroz12** » Wed Nov 06, 2019 1:20 am

actually I'm nee here but as everyone said it is such a great place here and all the info is invaluable. so try to get rid of the spammers and keep up the good work. I been getting in and out of this site for info. nerver signed till today that I saw the post. it would be a shame yo see the site going down because of a bunch of spammers. get rid of them and fight hard. cheers.

Post by **RyanVM** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 10:52 am

When it rains, it pours....

Sorry for the recent outage. My hosting provider had to take my site offline due to it being under extreme load (looks like it was being DOSed or something). Hopefully a temporary issue....

Jody Thornton · Post by **Jody Thornton** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 1:42 pm

Well it's terrific to have you back. I only resort to this forum on occasion (or to report MSFN outages ....lol. But it's a valuable resource.

dencorso · Post by **dencorso** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 3:21 pm

RyanVM wrote: ↑
Tue Nov 12, 2019 10:52 am
When it rains, it pours....

Sure! Glad it wasn't the final shut down, which I hope isn't near.
In any case, considering 5eraph and you were so kind as to allow us MSFNers a regrouping place here at your forums, I decided to provide you with a similar service and created a pinned "RyanVM.net state" thread on the General Discussion forum at MSFN. Hope you all find it useful.

Post by **RyanVM** » Tue Nov 12, 2019 10:17 pm

If and when the time comes for this to wind down, I definitely don't plan to do so by just ghosting everyone

PROBLEMCHYLD · Post by **PROBLEMCHYLD** » Wed Nov 13, 2019 2:00 am

The web ain't what it used to be. More and more people are shutting down sites. Best thing is to make copies of everything. Nothing last forever.

wimc · Post by **wimc** » Wed Nov 13, 2019 9:24 am

I would just disable registrations (if not done already), then take whatever amount of time to clean up the garbage (missed spam messages, spammers themselves). Leave registrations closed afterwards.

Just an idea.

SherylinRM1 · Post by **SherylinRM1** » Thu Nov 14, 2019 8:52 am

dencorso wrote: ↑
Tue Nov 12, 2019 3:21 pm
In any case, considering 5eraph and you were so kind as to allow us MSFNers a regrouping place here at your forums, I decided to provide you with a similar service and created a pinned "RyanVM.net state" thread on the General Discussion forum at MSFN. Hope you all find it useful.

Do you have a direct link to that post?
I am sure many of us would appreciate it.
Thank you

Post by **5eraph** » Thu Nov 14, 2019 11:05 am

On MSFN, it's stickied in General Discussion:

RyanVM.net state

For MSFN's regroup here, it's also stickied in General Discussion:

MSFN.org state

Lex24 · Post by **Lex24** » Sat Nov 16, 2019 11:18 am

Shutting the site down? I hope it won't happen any time soon. Also, the idea of "registration by invitation only" seems too restrictive. This would just turn away most new potential members. How about switching to read-only, but only temporarily, when faced with unusually high volume of spam.

spawn · Post by **spawn** » Sat Nov 23, 2019 8:42 pm

i can offer to delete spam but that'd mean granting permissions i don't work and have plenty of time to tolerate deleting their mass productions. Hell some people would say suffer to me i bet

Post by **mooms** » Sun Nov 24, 2019 9:04 am

Ask 5eraph or RyanVM in a private message.

SherylinRM1 · Post by **SherylinRM1** » Sun Dec 01, 2019 5:49 pm

Thank you Seraph
Sorry for taking so long to reply.
I never got an email or nothing.

submix8c · Post by **submix8c** » Tue Dec 03, 2019 2:07 pm

(whew!)
I have several older computers that I "play" with and got worried when I seen this topic.

DoS attacks seem to be commonplace now it seems. Anybody notice last week's Facebook/Twitter/(other) attacks?

Fork those iceholes! (glad you got it sorted.) Stay alive, please! (Hi, MSFN's...)

Lioninstreet · Post by **Lioninstreet** » Thu Dec 05, 2019 6:39 am

I actually just stumbled on this forum. As someone who for various reasons has a need for several of these sunsetted OS's, thanks for leaving this valuable resource alive.

roirraWedorehT · Post by **roirraWedorehT** » Thu Dec 05, 2019 9:28 am

Thank you, Ryan, for taking care of my username issue! I just wanted to say that without this forum and bink.nu when it existed in one of its old incarnations, I would've been a much less happy XP camper. bink.nu is gone completely and I did occasionally visit here and there just to see if there's still activity, and I'm glad to see there still is on here.

I was actually a voyeur here for a year or two (sometime shortly after XP SP2 came out around August 2004) before I registered.

I remember there was a user on here who had a really jacked-up but funny avatar which I had saved on my hard drive at one time, but sadly I've lost it and he since changed or removed his avatar. Don't remember his username anymore, but it always cracked me up the more and more I looked at it. It was some funny combination of a guy's bearded face but with pigtails and I think a woman's lips or something like that. I can still see it in my head: scary, I know.

If it's at all possible, I think it would be helpful to at least keep the site intact as it now stands, even if you either don't allow any new user registrations or don't allow any new posts or even don't allow any current users to log in anymore. Whatever level you choose, or if you decide to take the site down completely, I understand and I will continue to occasionally remember back and think fondly on my memories of learning and doing on here.

Take care!

Very late update: Found the avatar, which apparently was better known than I realized. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/creepy-ugly-guy or

Post by **mooms** » Thu Dec 05, 2019 1:48 pm

This one ?

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/creepy-ugly-guy

xiaox · Post by **xiaox** » Fri Dec 06, 2019 12:27 am

I hope not shutdown, keep this forum read only it's ok too.
(If i can keep a offline version is great)

BlueMe · Post by **BlueMe** » Tue Jan 14, 2020 4:58 pm

Hi Ryan, first thanks for all the effort, this site was and is a gem for many.
I've used it for XP and still visit it from time to time. I still have an XP & 7 (off-course) image and plan to put it all together (update packs, custom installers) sometime. I've already did this countless times but this will be the art in the shelf

If you can't afford it, leave it as "read only" if nothing, else might want to consider making the registration process harder or by exception (like if someone really wants to join, he will have to send a custom message to a dedicated email address, this will rule out most of the spam and maintenance)

Once again, thanks for everything whatever you decide.

PS : guys, you might want to backup things you need now, just in case.

tata196 · Post by **tata196** » Wed Jan 15, 2020 3:28 pm

I hope not shutdown, keep this forum read only
Thank you Ryan and moderators, for the many years effort you made

Zephyr · Post by **Zephyr** » Sat Feb 15, 2020 10:56 am

I was aghast when I saw the topic title "Shutting this down", until I saw 5ereph's proposal to halt registrations and make the forum read only. This forum means a lot to me and the whole addon/update pack thing is a brilliant invention that has changed the way I set up Windows, so I would be sorry if I could not post here again. However, 5ereph does have a point about declining activity - something that I had not noticed before. For instance, in the Update Pack Addons list of topics the only two last posts in 2020 were made by me. Actually in those two topics there has been considerable activity, such as a lively discussion about tools to list pending updates detected by WUA which has enlarged my knowledge of the tools and techniques available.

My suggestion for resolving the spam problem would be to set a limit for the number of users posts per week, or per day if the forum software permits this.

Also, I suspect that user_hidden, 5ereph and RyanVM are weary of the forum, having contributed a stupendous amount of work in maintaining the forum and contributing major update packs and addons since 2005. This demonstrates an almost superhuman level of passion and commitment possibly without parallel in the world of computing forums. If they would like to retire, I would like to suggest that they could transfer the ownership of the forum to someone else, or else allow others to maintain updates to their work posted here.

avamk · Post by **avamk** » Mon Mar 09, 2020 2:14 pm

I'd like to echo the sentiment already expressed by others in terms of the huge thanks we all owe to the admin team here.

FWIW I'd happily pitch in some money to help the effort.

In the worst case scenario of making this forum read-only or even completely shutting it down, I strongly suggest making a (relative) permanent archive of it on the Internet Archive (as @mooms suggested) or contacting the people at Archive Team to help.

An important thing is that the incredible work done by members here should be archived, including all of the files that have been linked to such as the numerous update packs and AiO packs. I hope everyone who has contributed those files archive them on the Internet Archive, too!

GH0st · Post by **GH0st** » Thu Apr 09, 2020 10:07 pm

Wow, I haven't been here because I thought it actually got shut down! Found Diabia talking about post here in MSN forum, Wow

pksw · Post by **pksw** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 2:44 am

Not sure if I've ever posted on this site before, but if it does close down I'd like to pass on my thanks. I used XP until Win7 was released, and the help here on creating slipstreamed ISOs was great. Particularly when internet speeds were not fast, and download windows updates took an eternity.

Post by **RyanVM** » Wed Apr 22, 2020 9:57 pm

Came back today to check on some things after a couple months to another 400+ messages in the spam moderation queue. Doesn't appear we can stay ahead of this with the moderators we've got (and I added more after starting this thread). I plan to close new registrations effective immediately and will likely set this to read-only around the end of April or early May.

GH0st · Post by **GH0st** » Thu Apr 23, 2020 12:16 am

Dibya · Post by **Dibya** » Sun Apr 26, 2020 2:30 am

Closing registration will be best