Philip Roy Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 I see that Simply Hosting has apparently implemented a security captcha for these forums? Not a fan…and certainly not a fan of the way it has been implemented. I use an RSS reader to track all the sites I’m interested in. The rss feed for this site would previously list all new forum posts, allowing me to decide which posts to read, ignore, get involved in etc. I now realise that feed has stopped working, probably because of the way the new security feature has been introduced. There are new posts in this forum that are not appearing in the feed…I assume because an RSS reader can’t complete a captcha question? What used to happen was this… Click on a forum thread in the RSS feed that I want to read that thread loads in my browser I can read the thread Currently, with the old threads in my feed (as new ones aren’t appearing) this is what happens… Click on a forum thread in the RSS feed that I want to read that thread possibly loads in my browser…I wouldn’t know, as instead… I get prompted to answer a captcha question the browser then redirects to the main page of the forum (instead of redirecting to thread I want to read) In short, RSS is messed up and the captcha question not only seems to be at fault, but ignores direct links to a thread. I’d love to know if the same thing happens to a link in an email when you receive notifications about a reply and click on it? Link to comment
Katryne Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 That's true, new messages are not listed anymore in my feed reader. The feed that I used to follow (until January the 4th) was : https://tng.community/index.php?/rss/1-rss-feed-for-guests.xml/ This feed can still be read as standalone, when one paste it in the address bar of the browser, but not anymore in my feed reader (Feedbro in Firefox) So it's completely useless now. If this cannot be mended with the hosting provider, suppress it, it's not a feature anymore. Please do something about it. Link to comment
theKiwi Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 I have alerted Simply Hosting about this situation just now (8:45AM EST). So far I've heard from one user that they had trouble passing the captcha test and couldn't get in yesterday. It was implemented by Simply Hosting to try and relieve load on their servers which are under constant attack from bots. This captcha has also been implemented on some of the TNG sites that are at Simply Hosting. More as I learn more. Roger Link to comment
Philip Roy Posted January 6 Author Report Share Posted January 6 Thanks. Just an FYI..I got one email notification about this thread. I clicked “Go to this post”, the forum site loaded, I completed the captcha and it just redirected to the main page of the forum. So in my opinion, the approach they have taken is screwing up basic forum functionality. Let’s hope they implement a better solution…I live by RSS feeds! Link to comment
Katryne Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 I believe that direct links are made impossible by this captcha, whether by email notification, RSS feed, or simple sharing. Under these conditions, it would be better to just remove the forum feature altogether. Link to comment
Philip Roy Posted January 6 Author Report Share Posted January 6 I’m hoping you mean removing the captcha, because removing direct links would be absurd. Talk about knee capping basic functionality! I posted my blindingly obvious comment about forum links failing from an email notification simply to make sure that issue was noted along with the RSS issue. Link to comment
Katryne Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 Philip, I was responding to absurdity with an absurdity: I think this forum loses 80% of its usefulness with this captcha, which does not allow users to reach a response via a direct link, but redirects them to the home page. Link to comment
Philip Roy Posted January 6 Author Report Share Posted January 6 All good…the joys of trying to interpret tone in forum posts. But let’s not be completely negative…on the positive side, I’m finding out my basic maths skills haven’t escaped me🤣🤦♂️ Link to comment
Katryne Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 Don't forget that my native language is French and that I have never lived in an English-speaking country. My knowledge of English is very theoretical. So I don't know how to be subtle in this language. Link to comment
Philip Roy Posted January 6 Author Report Share Posted January 6 And I don’t know how to be subtle at all 😃 Apologies if you were offended by my comment. I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t suggesting what I thought you were suggesting…so my bad. Link to comment
Philip Roy Posted January 6 Author Report Share Posted January 6 Looks like something has happened as the RSS feed is back and no captcha! Yay! Link to comment
theKiwi Posted January 6 Report Share Posted January 6 With this comment I'm closing this thread. The captcha has been removed by Simply Hosting - at least for now. Roger Link to comment
Recommended Posts