robinbrinkler

Thanks, now we just need to encourage the record labels and PR companies to leave some forums free for normal discussion! lol.

cheers Quadrant, no probs. Number 2 fan, it's true, you and others did offer regularly to help with this and looking back I think it was a mistake that you weren't granted the ability to moderate. Thank you for helping get the latest revamp of the board off the ground. On a personal note, I've been a fan of Jules's show and DJ appearances since the 90s (and still remember passing Jules what amounted to an A4 page fan letter in a club in Aberdeen one night, haha). I always wanted to work with him one day, and eventually had the opportunity through Daniel Slipper who writes the majority of content for Dave Pearce's site. After doing the monthly newsletter for a couple of years with Daniel and Jules the opportunity came up to offer a design for his new website, and since then I have done a fair amount of bits and pieces including websites and banners for Judgement Sundays too. After installing the new board and designing the templates and buttons etc, I had other projects looming and after 10 years doing web design and coding (but also several months realising I loved 3D modelling but none of my clients could afford to pay me to build intricate models and spanking animation if it took 30 days solid) spent a while trying to figure out what I really want to do, whether to focus on one area or continue trying to do "everything" lol. My new band has also taken up a big chunk of time, it's something I love doing but as we're in our infancy and trying to do something a bit different, it's been time consuming to say the least. This past year and a half I have had rather a lot going on personally too, life tends to throw challenges at all of us and sometimes it's hard to fit everything in. When you create something like an online community, it takes time and dedication to make it work and to sustain it. Although the recent issues might have been too much in terms of spam volume for any moderator to deal with, the situation arose partly because those users who could have helped and were willing to, felt their offers were falling on deaf ears, and that is a shame. The whole thing certainly needs attention now, and I have voiced some concerns and suggestions to Jules. I'll also discuss with the rest of his team to see what they think. Anyway this is turning into a 5am ramble - we'll get the board sorted out and I will report back. Thanks for the support guys and keep up the great work on this community. Cheers Robin

Hi guys, I logged on to Jules's board in the early hours of this morning and noticed the terrible spam situation. Unfortunately I was never notified about this and it's quite embarrassing that I had to discover it by chance - since I really don't go on the board much. My involvement with Jules generally involves design work and some updates. It's clearly not the responsibility of the moderators to manage spam of this volume either, although many users have been very helpful in the past (especially thank you Paul!) You obviously have a good community here which is great - it's a shame spam seems to have ended up plaguing both of Jules's recent official boards. Generally each time there has been an update available for the official software (release 3 of vBulletin), Jules's server guys have installed it in a timely fashion, but are only just about to upgrade to the next version of 4. In terms of spam protection, the question / answer technique was already installed, and I have added a second question and answer - but within minutes spambots were cracking the new question / answer - it remains to be seen if they are beating both. A new user "gaylord" registered for example, lol. It's now set up for registration moderation so I need to approve new members. All of this may seem too little too late, but I thought I'd post over here anyhow. Best wishes and have a good New Year everyone, Robin Brinkler (neutroncore)