I must say goodbye, I'm afraid. I love XOOPS. I contributed to the XOOPS dev manual. I have built several sites with XOOPS and continue to maintain them. I have been building a super site for my hosting clients (I do webhosting at www.noise.org). But, alas, it appears I must leave.

Probably the biggest issue right now is the fact that I can't seem to stay connected to the XOOPS.org website. I never had this problem before, but my IP has been banned more than once just from using the site - posting, researching, etc. If I can't reach the site, then I can't use the software or contribute to the community.

I do have a few more things to contribute. I have a port of SmartProfile that works on PHP4. It's also ported to the /modules/profile directory (ala XOOPS 2.2.x) so that you can use xosCommerce (works great btw).

I've been frustrated with integrating the WYSIWYG editors, especially FCKeditor and image management which I can't get to work. I tried to post about it, but I can't get to the site from this IP address (and I can't change IP addresses -- I've tried). I was only down for 1/2 a day last time. This time I've been down more than 24 hours. And I posted about it in the forums, but no response.

I figure I triggered protector module. See, when I do research, I'll do a search, and then I'll open several new tabs of results in Firefox at once. That is likely what happened, but now I can't get back in again.

I've been working with Drupal lately, too. It has some misgivings, but it has some great stuff too. I need to make a long-term investment in an architecture for the site that I'm building to offer to my clients. I'm in the middle of it, in critical path, and on a deadline to get it done. But alas, I can't.

I posted recently about what I like about XOOPS and what is missing. The forward direction of XOOPS was announced 18 months ago or more. We're still missing a number of critical aspects that will keep this going. I've been trying to contribute and was about to release some contributions and updates to debaser, xcGallery, SmartProfile (my PHP4/profile port). But, I was trying to get all my stuff ready including some of the bugs I was having.

So, alas, with much sadness, I've decided I must move on. XOOPS is better on so many levels, especially from a programming standpoint and a caching standpoint (lightweight on the servers).

Adios, adieu, tschuss, goodbye. And best of luck.

It does sound like protector has been very sensitive... I've dropped you a PM over this matter for you.

Well, okay. I've reconsidered, and I'm back. LOL. At least I'm back in.

My preference is to stick with XOOPS at this point. I've got a lot of time and effort invested in it. As you know, any CMS, to do it right, you have to invest time in it. You can start easily with any of them, but to make it yours, you have to crawl under the hood.

I've crawled under almost every nook and cranny of XOOPS. And in the spirit of community, worked to contribute back where I can.

Owning my own ISP, being a community organizer, and also a consultant and developer, I know what it's like to have many irons in the fire and manage them all. I look forward to the new XOOPS site, and the other things we all are working on. Together, we can create change, and make a difference.

I hope that I don't get banned again, but at least I have an e-mail of someone on the team now that can assist. I felt lost using lynx since I couldn't PM people I knew could help. At least I was able to post in these forums.

So, I'm still around, and will remain so, and re-engaging again in my contributive manner. I just hope that Protector won't ban me again.

Thanks,

Mark

It is very frustrating when that happens... it's happened to me a few times as well... so I can understand how it must be like

yep very frustrating, and yep it's happened to a lot of us before now.. but at least we know protector works in that regard..

What is it about protector that does this?

I have been long considering using protector but I have been concerned for long time that many people would not be able to access the site.

It's kinda like when you have norton set up. ya know? too much trouble sometimes.

But if there is a particular issue in Protector that this most associates with..perhaps we can nab it.

For instance, I dont know if this relates...
But I know someone who owns an ISP as well. And the got banned from google adsense because the majority of their clients are behind a firewall with a limited IP range.

Google assumed that it was like the same 4 people clicking ...when in fact there may have been hundreds of different users.

I wonder if something like that in protector? Associating you Ip ..

oh..wait lost my train of thought!

p.s Ive been banned here before too once!
I Seem to recall like having twenty different pages open at once when trying to tackle a problem!

Thats why those admin emails are handy to know...

If you post a / followed by a *, or if you post multiple *s in succession, Protector will ban you.

This is configurable in the module, but we have it set to strict settings because of how often hack attempts are made here.

That was the case with mboyden. I found 2 instances where he tried to post an example that had a forward-slash followed by an asterisks. Both times, his IP was banned.

While mboyden's posts were not malicious, we cannot loosen this restriction as forward-slash followed by an asterisks is one of the most common components in hack attack code.

I'll be setting up a form where users can contact us in the event of accidental banning.

That shouldn't be an excuse though - seems that if it is a known issue, it is also known how to fix. Or at least not ban due to a false positive. I personally don't use protector for various reasons - but I have looked at it and it sure looks a lot like the original protection mod used for PHPNuke - which is not a bad thing, but the things it triggers off of are guesses at best. Sometimes though, that's what we are faced with.

Anyway, it's customer experience that brings them back!

With the server migration, we are looking into ways of enhancing the experience of our members. Security is #1 on the list.

Until we get everything moved over and all the bugs worked out, there is the potential for accidental banning. We are doing everything possible to prevent this, but things happen. That's why we now have an Emergency Contact Form.

That form is submitted to a ML of XOOPS.org site Admins. At least one of us is online at every hour of the day. If you accidentally get banned, contact us via the Emergency Contact Form and we will get you taken care of ASAP.

I personally do not use Protector as it causes more problems than it solves at times, yet there are many features of this module that should have been considered core elements a long time ago.

One of the major problems with protector is that those people who happen to use the same IP address via colleges etc could find themselves not having access to a site. I had this problem with a few clients, we had to remove this module completely to allow full access.