Times for the Times and Spammers – Everyone Please Read!

We have had some complaints about highly offensive spam.

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.

41 comments on “Times for the Times and Spammers – Everyone Please Read!”

  1. Thank you for your continuing efforts on our behalf.
    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
  2. Thank you to the bloggers and administrators of this wonderful site. Please do whatever is necessary to maintain the quality and integrity of it for its users.
  3. What’s the problem with just deleting unpleasant stuff? I delete things on my own blogs (I can’t on others) all the time and it’s no trouble really. Admittedly I haven’t seen anything very offensive, just pointless spam.
  4. I hope nothing will deter the setters from coming here to comment – they can be illuminating. Also we get an occasional helpful post from David Parfitt et al at the Club site which we’d want to continue.
  5. I have already privately mentioned to vinyl1 that I am not convinced that barring Anons would achieve anything as the spam that caused offence (and I’m only aware of one in recent months) came from a malicious LJ user account so it was not anonymous. Also it was not a comment added to an existing blog journal, but a whole new journal in its own devious right.

    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)

  6. I’m probably just being thick,but where is the “Join this community “ link?
    Regards
    1. Alan, it may vary depending on the device you are using and means of access. On a standard PC or laptop it should be almost at the very top of the page in the centre.
      1. Thank you. It is “behind” a small icon of four arrows pointing to a central dot if anybody else is looking for it. (That is on an ipad).
  7. I suggest you leave things as they are

    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 …

  8. OK — I think I have now successfully joined the community. I thought it might allow me to change my name to a pseudonym, but that didn’t appear to be an option. Maybe there’s some other way of doing it?
    Should I be joining a community that would accept me as a member? (a la Groucho).
    1. I can’t claim expertise, Mike, but as you’ve accessed using a Google id I think LJ forces you to stick with that.

      P.S. I can confirm that you have now officially joined TfTT.

      Edited at 2021-05-11 01:49 pm (UTC)

  9. Thank you. I was unaware that I could ‘Join the Community’ as an extra step – now done Good luck with the battle. As a moderator of another community discussion forum website, I know that despite filters and various other techniques, it is tiresome, time-consuming and not pleasant to have to manage.

    Edited at 2021-05-11 04:22 pm (UTC)

  10. As others above, I can’t see a link called “join this community” (I’m on a PC using Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge). What I’m offered is “Join Free” at the top right, but if I click on this, what am I joining ? Is it everything on Live Journal, or (as I would prefer) a TftT “community” ?

    Jim R

    1. Jim,

      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)

      1. I have created a LJ account but keep falling at the last fence: when I open TfTT “in the usual way” there is no sign-in option. btw, I was also one who was barred from commenting anonymously for some unfathomable reason.

  11. 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.

    1. As things stand it makes no difference, but as mentioned in vinyl1’s introduction if it were to become necessary to restrict access to TfTT for security reasons, being a registered member would ensure you retain uninterrupted access.

      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.

      1. Thanks so much for taking the trouble to explain all this so clearly. Having benefitted from reading the blog for years, I only set up an LJ account a few months ago to begin commenting. I hadn’t realised that there was a separate ‘Join the Community’ action. Having clicked on the icon described by alanw111 (thanks, Alan) I was asked if I wanted to add this group to my friends page – and lots of other options – all of which I ignored. Am I now a member of the community?
        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.
        1. Joe, I’m happy to confirm you are now officially on our members list. Welcome!

          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.

          1. Many thanks. I like the idea of being officially on the members list.
  12. After thinking about this today I realized that the very few offensive/suspicious posts that I’ve seen lately have been less unpleasant and more avoidable than some of the ads that pop up on this site. Whatever algorithm thinks I would be interested in dating young Russian women or ear wax removal or alternatives to loo paper is on the wrong track. Although not enough so far to compel me to sign up for supposedly ad-free membership.
    1. Completely agree with you Olivia, and selecting the ad preference options makes absolutely no difference either. But I don’t use LJ for anything else so don’t want a subscription. Will just have to scroll through those ads 😕
        1. Thanks Jack — very thoughtful of you 😊 I use Silk or Chrome and log in with my user name. It’s just part of the deal of having free access I suppose. As Olivia says, I’ve learnt to blank them out — or whizz past them very quickly! Penny
    2. Olivia, there must be a way round this but I’m afraid I don’t know how to advise you. I don’t get any of these advertisements on any of my devices – two desktop PC’s, an android tablet and an i-phone. I think being logged in under my user-name is part of the process, but obviously you are logged in too, so it can’t be only down to that. Maybe it’s to do with browser (I use Chrome and Firefox) or perhaps there’s a particular browser extension that controls it. Installing Adblock Plus may help. Perhaps others can advise further…

      Edited at 2021-05-11 10:52 pm (UTC)

      1. Thank you for this Jack. I use Firefox too. It’s an annoyance but I’ve concluded it’s not really worth the bother and I pretty much tune the ads out anyway.
    3. I can at least reassure you that if you do ever pay for LJ, it does indeed go properly advert-free. I’ve been a paid member since 2005, I think, back when it was the hip-and-trendy place to blog the minutiae of one’s everyday life (and before it was sold to its current Russian owners) and I only see the ads if I’ve somehow been logged out.
      1. Thanks Matt. In the meantime I think Vinyl has answered your point.
  13. I very occasionally post a question when I don’t understand a solution ( I’m a beginner of 20 years standing!).The thought of having to find yet another user name/password, etc,(to add to the 20-30 other ones I already use!), logging in yet again….
    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?
    1. When you log in the first time there is a ‘Remember me’ option and it’s very rarely you would need to log in again.

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