Forums blocked from China?

[caorongjin]

Just out of curiosity, are your forums blocked from Chinese IP addressses? I can navigate the http://www.bruji.com pages without a problem but once I hit the forums, I need to VPN. Otherwise, I get:

Code: Select all

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /forum/ucp.php on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apache Server at www.bruji.com Port 80

[Nora]

Unfortunately the number of spam posts we received from Chinese IPs every day was getting out of hand and since we have very few users from China we decided to block the IPs outright. Sorry about that.

[caorongjin]

Sounds like you need to enable some Captcha's for forum posts… or get onto an alternative forum software. Good thing I have VPN… though it is not always reliable. Thanks for confirming what I suspected.

[Conor]

We do have a series of Captcha's and now all first posting must be explicitly approved by a us. But that sitll left us with quite a work load of sorting out that spam. This is were blocking access from China worked really well. But it's unfortunate for our China users so I have updated the code so that China can at least browse the forums without a need for a VPN, although you will still need it for posting. Hopefully this will still work to block the spammers.

[caorongjin]

Thanks Connor. So, I'm viewing this forum fine from China and am now going to try to post without VPN.

[caorongjin]

Just to let you know, as you can see from my last post, I can post from china without VPN. Though I like that, it doesn't sound like that was your intention.

Alex

[Conor]

After posting I thought about it and blocked only the registration. Spam hasn't increased since the changes, so I shall leave it and then restrict access as needed if Spam increases, thank you for testing it.

[caorongjin]

Hmm.. Ok, well, now it looks like posting is blocked. oh wells. Having the ability to browse without VPN is useful by itself. Thanks, whatever you decide.

Alex