Newbie here

[rickmathew]

My name is rick and I have just recently join this site. I am here to interact with people and definitely get the information regarding this community. Glad to join this site.

[ayadew]

You have.. and I bet you're a bot.

[Aaron]

Well, welcome, Rick.

Remember, this entire messageboard is all about www.lawofone.info

Read up... that's the focus. These boards were made to talk about that!

(although it's true this particular forum is for the misc. topics)

[Questioner]

Not only that, Ayadew, a bought from a spammer who's about to lose their web hosting if we follow up right.

Since the original poster brought up spam in its boating store link, I'll discuss spam a bit. (I will not it buy spam on a boat, Sam I Am!)

whois (http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp) shows the target of the spammed link is registered with bluehost.com, a legitimate hosting company in Utah with terms of service that clearly disallow spamming. (http://helpdesk.bluehost.com/index.php/k...cle/000491: "We do not allow you to send unsolicited mass emails via email, newsgroup, etc. to others using our servers. People do not welcome unwanted advertisements for products or services being sent to them. It is usually illegal and almost always a breech of our Terms of Service (see Sec. 9, Paragraph 2). If we receive complaints of spamming and bulk email, we will remove you from our network.")
I know that because I use them to host a couple of sites (that don't spam, thank you very much!). I just used the chat feature at bluehost.com to ask where to make a report:

RyanC [7:46:16 AM]: Welcome to our real-time support chat. I do answer multiple chats at a time and will get to you asap. Thank you for your patience!
FIRST TIME SALES QUESTION [7:46:16 AM]: Good morning, how do I report a spam-sending domain registered through Bluehost? I suspect it's violating your terms of service.
RyanC [7:47:00 AM]: we have a zero-tolerance policy towards abuse. Please submit details of any offenders to abuse@bluehost.com
FIRST TIME SALES QUESTION [7:48:14 AM]: Thanks, I'll use that email address. I'm already a Bluehost customer myself (and not a spammer myself) so I'm glad to know where to make the report. that's all I need today!
RyanC [7:51:38 AM]: you're welcome. Have a nice day and please contact us if you have any additional questions

I recommend moderators have a form letter ready to cut and paste to hosting providers. Here's an example:

I participate in a discussion forum about particular books that discuss an unusual perspective on spirituality. The forum has few members and a low discussion volume compared to the typical web forum. New members almost always start with lengthy and well-reasoned discussions of their spiritual journey and what the teachings mean to them.
Recently we have had apparent new members who post a series of totally inane and generic one-line posts, that say things like: Hi, nice forum. I love sports and TV, just like everyone. Why does it say my inbox full? Everyone loves scary stories, don't we? I stopped smoking but I cough up green goo, should I see a doctor?
There is never a response to other people's replies to these new topics, only more and more of these threads until the account is banned, locked and disabled. This is obviously a hassle nobody needs.
Apparently the only purpose of these threads is to promote a web site linked in the signature line, no matter whether it has any relevance to the forum.
[next paragraph changed for the occasion]
For the new spam account that showed up last night, we saw that the target link is registered with bluehost and is a seller of boat acccessories with a contact page listing Jersey, Channel Islands as the address. Here are the links showing the spam activity:
... [links go here]...
This activity almost certainly violates any non-spam clause you might have in your hosting terms of service. Please block any further activity from this host, or any other host registered by the same people, from access to our domain, and do whatever else you do to investigate abusive misuse of your resources.
If you happen to know how to contact anti-spam, fraud investigation, or consumer protection type of services in the Channel Islands, we'd appreciate any help you could provide getting in touch with them too, so that the vendor can't get away with jumping from your service to other hosting providers it can abuse.
We'd also welcome any advice you might have about how to improve our forum software to reduce susceptibility to this kind of abuse, while still offering an easy to use service for people who want to join our conversation.
Thank you for your help.

---

I don't remember if the signup here has an anti-spam provision. Might be worthwhile discussing it. My suggestion is to have the signup form include the title of any of Carla's books, chosen at random from a list that doesn't include the Ra books. The challenge is to match the title's first and last words out of a random selection of other titles' first words. "One of Carla's books is titled Secrets of the UFO. To confirm that you're a person, not a spambot, please click below on the first word of this book's title: []Light []Secrets []A []The []What []All []Living, and please click here on the last word of this book's title: []sweetwater []mosaics []years []choice []handbook []UFO []love"
I prefer this to a generic captcha because it can all be done onsite, and is an easy puzzle for any real person to solve while almost impossible to guess by chance. It's also unique to this forum which I like.

[Aaron]

Certainly the last thing any of us want is for this forum to be flooded by spam...

Thanks for your quick efforts, Questioner.

[Questioner]

You're welcome, Aaron. I think it would be best for such a letter to come from someone who's an official moderator and can retrieve IP addresses if the forum software captures them.

Have you seen this kind of thing at other discussion forums?

[Aaron]

You're welcome, Aaron. I think it would be best for such a letter to come from someone who's an official moderator and can retrieve IP addresses if the forum software captures them.

Have you seen this kind of thing at other discussion forums?

Well, actually as I said in my first post, I have not ever really felt the need to join or even post in an online forum with the strange exception of this one!

I do know that as a forum becomes bigger, there is more of a chance for it to attract spam and unhelpful users. And we already have 969 members registered here! It might also have to do with the event of a massive amount of positivity attracting the negativity for balance.

I'm a newbie myself, so I can't in good faith recommend any changes to the site, only suggestions. I suggest maybe a clearer mission statement on the front page or clearer link to the L/L publications as the focus of the forum. Of course I think that your suggestion for the new, relative capcha is a great idea!

[Questioner]

Have you seen this kind of thing at other discussion forums?

Well, actually as I said in my first post, I have not ever really felt the need to join or even post in an online forum with the strange exception of this one!

Oh, I'm sorry I missed that. But I'm also glad that you get such a friendly, thoughtful community as your first example. When I got started online, it was with dial-up bulletin board systems that had special interest forums similar in tone to this one, on a variety of subjects. It helped me have high expectations for what online discussions should be like.

I do know that as a forum becomes bigger, there is more of a chance for it to attract spam and unhelpful users. And we already have 969 members registered here! It might also have to do with the event of a massive amount of positivity attracting the negativity for balance.

I think you're right, and more on the second point. I don't have the reference handy, but I remember some of the L/L Research material, maybe from Ra, points out that as a light source increases its intensity with the doubling that comes from each sincere source (minus some loss to inefficiency), it attracts darkness that would prefer to stop that shining.

I think that the rude, self-serving, mindless spambot activity is used against this forum as an example of a "psychic greeting" discouraging us from continuing. This doesn't mean that those doing the spamming have the slightest interest or clue in any kind of spiritual teachings, not even negative spirituality - only that their mindset opens them to be a tool of corruption. That's why I wanted to bring this all out into the open for discussion.

I suggest maybe a clearer mission statement on the front page or clearer link to the L/L publications as the focus of the forum.

When you signed up, was that purpose not clear to you? I'm wondering how that could be put.

Of course I think that your suggestion for the new, relative capcha is a great idea!

My pride says: thankya vera much.

(Full disclosure: this is not a good likeness of your Questioner.)

[Aaron]

I think you're right, and more on the second point. I don't have the reference handy, but I remember some of the L/L Research material, maybe from Ra, points out that as a light source increases its intensity with the doubling that comes from each sincere source (minus some loss to inefficiency), it attracts darkness that would prefer to stop that shining.

I think that the rude, self-serving, mindless spambot activity is used against this forum as an example of a "psychic greeting" discouraging us from continuing. This doesn't mean that those doing the spamming have the slightest interest or clue in any kind of spiritual teachings, not even negative spirituality - only that their mindset opens them to be a tool of corruption. That's why I wanted to bring this all out into the open for discussion.

Yes, it is always better to have things out in the open. The spambot posts function for us as a distraction. How much energy, positive or negative, are we giving them? That is to say how much attention do we pay to the "problem" of them showing up here? Because remember, whatever you pay attention to, more of that will come! haha Imagine an outside observer, someone who is not ready to awaken and has never heard of anything LOO related and imagine that they are shown this forum. They will have no reaction to the spambot because they don't care about the spambot OR this forum. However, we DO react to the spambot. That means it's catalyst, specially designed for us!

When you signed up, was that purpose not clear to you? I'm wondering how that could be put.

To paraphrase the home page of bring4th: "Bring4th means bring forth your love and bring 4th density. We launched this site after launching www.llresearch.org so now that site's a virtual library. Hopefully information will be shared here and this will be conductive to awakening."

In fact, it doesn't say "Law of One" anywhere on bring4th's front page. It is clear though, that it is connected to llresearch, and on that front page, claim is laid to the Ra material.

The purpose of these boards was clear to me, but not all people get the purpose of something unless it's spelled out to them.

Like I said, I'm new here and admittedly unfamiliar with all the material behind these boards so I don't presume to know anything special or to be able to identify if changes should be made.