So, uh, I've been banned from seeing this page and/or logging on for a few months. 

Every time I clicked on the "Message Board" button, I got a "You've been banned" notice saying, "Tragic Image/Squidward", etc. 
Did I do something to warrant this?

I've been so psyched because I hit 11,000 miles on my lil' GS!  Anyway, it's nice to be able to read the board again...I guess everyone needs a little hiatus from addiction--I've missed this board

-Patrick

jesus pandy...is there anyone you didn't ban with the whole tragic thing?

No one told me why he got banned or if I liked him or not.  I just can't remember tragic...

Patrick:

Unfortunately, when a member acts up badly--in this case, creating a couple dozen new accounts--we have to do a blanket ban, and it can affect other members. This is absolutely a last resort, and we try our very best NOT to have to do this. Members such as Mak may blame us mods/admins, but the person to really thank is the member who caused his entire IP block to be banned.

We've implemented new procedures when new members join which have eliminated about 99% of this type of problem.

Sorry you were caught in the huge problem that was created by this one member. I'm working on releasing any non-proxy IP/servers he may have used so that we don't keep running into this problem.

Congrats on hitting 11K miles, and welcome back. 

pandy

Thanks for the info.  BTW, I got three new messages when I returned this evening to the forum and they were all the same, "Important Info Read Immediately", and they all were photoshopped porn...and bad porn at that.  Was this part of the incident?

-Patrick

Patrick:

That porn SPAM by RobertT was sent to every member, and that was another reason we implemented better security for new members signing up. If you clicked on any of the links, be sure to do a virus/spyware scan. Several members had their computers messed up after clicking on one of the RobertT links. 

Those were exciting times. 

Yeah, that's pretty much a bunch of crap.  Why can't you ban Tragic's IP specifically?  It really is too bad that good, honest, contributing members are getting blocked.

Congrats on hitting 11,000 miles!!!  Welcome back!  We're sorry you were blocked for so long!

-Turd.

Quote from: Turd Ferguson on May 02, 2007, 09:46:22 PM
Yeah, that's pretty much a bunch of crap.  Why can't you ban Tragic's IP specifically?  It really is too bad that good, honest, contributing members are getting blocked.

Congrats on hitting 11,000 miles!!!  Welcome back!  We're sorry you were blocked for so long!

-Turd.

just blame it all on Tragic!

Yup, it's definitely cr*p that the actions of one member causes problems for other members. Hopefully, all members will be able to control immature impulses, and then this sort of problem won't come up again.  Tragic's IP was specifically banned....actually, a number of them were.

oh all of you just shut up.

Quote from: TragicImage on May 02, 2007, 10:27:56 PM
oh all of you just shut up.

Am I the only one that has no idea what happened?  Where was I when all this occured?  I'm on here at least once a day.

Perhaps you were looking for your Deal's Gap thread? 

We went through a lot of changes last October. A few members decided it would be a swell idea to create a number of new accounts to cause trouble, plus there was the RobertT porn virus SPAM, and something else or two or three things that I can't even remember right now. We tightened up the process for signing up for membership on GSTwin (authentification, verification, and chocolate for the mods....ok, not the chocolate part, but feel free..... ). Needless to say, things have improved tremendously, and the workload on the well-paid <----- mods/admins was reduced.

Quote from: pandy on May 03, 2007, 12:58:39 PM
Perhaps you were looking for your Deal's Gap thread? 

Ok...now that's just not right...   

Quote from: oramac on May 03, 2007, 05:03:43 PM
Ok...now that's just not right...   

Just my lame attempt at humour. No offense intended.