As you may know, we have six administrators scattered around the globe who can delete spam and other inappropriate posts, and keep the blog in order. Our posting policy has been extremely liberal, and we do allow anonymous posts. This has been very useful for puzzle setters who want to comment on an issue without creating an account, as well as people who are experiencing technical difficulties and can’t get Live Journal to fix their problem.
However, there may come a time when we need to protect ourselves better. The only viable option we have is to require everyone who comments to have an account and be a member of Times for the Times. We do have open membership – just click on the ‘Join This Community’ link, and you’re a member!
So I suggest that if you’ve been posting anonymously, you sign up for a Live Journal account. If you have not joined the community, but have been posting with a Live Journal account (or through Google or Facebook or Twitter), you might want to click on the ‘Join This Community’ link so you will be ready for whatever happens. As always, please behave properly, and think before you post.
If we do decide to make this change, I will post a warning and give everyone three or four days advance notice.
As an occasional poster who has to remember to log in, as you say it only takes a couple of minutes to register (think of a username and password) and then remember to avoid commenting anonymously. A shame if it should prove necessary and I’m sorry if you’ve been subjected to unpleasantness
Most anonymous spam is already taken out by a Live Journal filter that places it in a ‘Suspicious Messages’ bin where our moderators can ‘uspam’ or delete it.
The spam messages that do get through (and our regulars will sometimes be aware of them) are not anonymous and seem to be produced by some sort of bot program. They usually appear with a commercial logo and perhaps just one word of text (‘Nice’ is popular), or sometimes they harvest and reproduce a piece of text posted elsewhere by a genuine contributor. These are annoying but innocuous and they seldom stay up for long because our moderators simply delete them which bans that user name from ever posting again.
I would not want to see any changes that have a major impact on genuine contributors’ access to TfTT but if breaches such as mentioned in my first paragraph become more frequent I understand it may be necessary to take further steps. I would therefore urge everyone who has not yet done so to obtain a Live Journal user-id and click to become a registered member of TfTT in accordance with Vinyl1’s request. That way gives us maximum flexibility and options for the future.
Edited at 2021-05-11 10:46 am (UTC)
Regards
If the spam is coming mainly from registered users then there is little point in banning anonymous users.
Are anonymous users commenting particularly offensively on the actual puzzles?
If so then I’d say that should be the primary reason for banning them. If not …
Should I be joining a community that would accept me as a member? (a la Groucho).
P.S. I can confirm that you have now officially joined TfTT.
Edited at 2021-05-11 01:49 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2021-05-11 04:22 pm (UTC)
Jim R
To join this community (TfTT) you first have to create a (free) Live Journal account. Click on Join Free and a page ‘Creating a New Journal’ will appear. Enter a username (whatever you choose, best to add a number or two or you may find it has already been taken). Enter a valid email address, and a password. I think they also require a DOB and gender. When you click Create Account to move on you may be asked to agree terms and conditions. At the end of this you will have created a Home Journal page which you can use in the future if you wish but there is no need to visit it ever again if you don’t want to.
Then open TfTT in the usual way and you will find an option to sign in at the top. Enter your new user name and password to log in and continue as usual. The option to ‘Join This Community’ (TfTT) is at the top of that page. Hope this helps.,
Edited at 2021-05-11 05:26 pm (UTC)
Jim R
I have a LJ account (obviously) and with it I am able to comment on the TftT blog, “like” member’s posts and have people reply to my comments.
So what exactly does joining this community give me that I already do not have?
Many thanks.
Hopefully things won’t come to that, but there are absolutely no disadvantages to registering so you might like to consider doing so. It only requires a couple of mouse-clicks.
Many thanks for the explanation. Much appreciated.
At the risk of complicating matters further, I’m still unclear whether there are any interactions between this site and The Times Crossword Club. I tend to print a copy each day because I’m still at the stage of needing paper to work on. (Happily complete the QC online.) Therefore I don’t have any interaction with the Crossword Club.
Thanks again.
I can’t advise re the ‘friends’ options as I have never used them myself, but having been a part of this community for 12+ years I think I would know by now if I was missing out on anything of importance.
There is no official interaction between TfTT and the Crossword Club other than a lot of our contributors participate in both and some of the Times setters read us from time to time and very occasionally join in our discussions. Also we were founded independently by Peter Biddlecombe who is currently the crossword editor of the Sunday Times. On taking up that position he relinquished his role here but still comments from time to time.
I never solve puzzles on-line, much preferring the pen-and -paper approach so I don’t do much at the Club.
Edited at 2021-05-11 10:52 pm (UTC)
surely this spam activity can’t be THAT bad? Who in their right mind wants to send offensive material to an innocent ( if admittedly slightly eccentric ) club of crossword fans?