New Blood

[Amb]

Some time ago we were inundated with spambots, and we had to stop our forums being google-searchable. But this means we have less new blood and could ultimately lead to the demise of the forums.

I think it's time to reinstate that searchability?

Any one agree or am I as barking mad as a "Lightspeed isnt constant" scientist?

[Zag]

I support the change. I know I found GL by searching, way back when. It was probably AltaVista that I searched on, though.

[Antrax]

I didn't even know we did that. I thought it was all the new captcha.
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[Chaz]

I'm kind of on the fence about it. I guess I'd say "let's see how it goes." I doubt the spam bots have gotten any less assaulting, but you're not wrong in needing more activity.
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[Jack_Ian]

I miss the Google-Searchability option. Especially since the forum's own search doesn't work.

[Amb]

Can anyone confirm if the system excludes google searching?

It really would be great to lead us back into life before the days of bulletin boards fade away completely.

[MatthewV]

I remember reading somewhere that the robots.txt document asks web crawlers to stay out of greylabyrinth.com/discussion

[Chaz]

[Amb*]

I'd like to see this changed back. We need the new blood. And the * method on names, that I use right now, should help.

[MatthewV]

Maybe we could allow search engines to index GLP, VSP, GL news only. That would potentially attract people interested in puzzle and such. Allowing the content of Off Topic to be searched by Google might not be the best.

[Courk]

*agrees with amb*

Or amb*

Or maybe ambot?

[Amb]

Was this ever changed? I dont mind off topic and vg and what have being searchable. It's a struggle to get players in games now because of the lack of new blood.

[wordcross]

I also agree
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Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

[Neo]

I think somebody with FTP access has to make the change. Robots.txt is still the same.
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_{Ad Astra}

[Amb]

Im still following this up.

I disagree about limiting which forums to search though. Mafia and VG could do with more...

[Antrax]

I've either fixed this or just ordered a swarm of killbots.
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Courk]

Thanks!

[Antrax]

Has anything changed?
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Poisonium]

I think it's a good idea, but then again, I'm not a moderator.

Although I found the website through a link from Wikipedia
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[Antrax]

Could one of the moderators please discipline Poisonium for expressing an opinion while not being a moderator?
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Jack_Ian]

Google finds GL when queried.
Is there really a problem here?

[raekuul]

The problem is that Google isn't (or wasn't) generating any results from inside the forums themselves, which is where we want the Realpeople to visit. In any case, Antrax did change it ten days ago, so...

[MatthewV]

It might take awhile for the spiders to come back to us. Until that moment, the change really hasn't happened at all.

[MatthewV]

The next feature that we might need is the requirement to have more than 5 posts before you can bump a thread more than a year old.
There is nothing wrong with bumping an old thread, but I have the feeling that our new blood may be finding topics that have already passed away...

[Quailman]

[Quailman]

Do it. Do it NOW!

[Zag]

It would probably be easier to prevent Icarian members from putting links in their sig or their notes. That would discourage the spammers from bothering to post in the first place, I would think.

[Samadhi]

I think it would be easier to add the "old post" block. But I agree; blocking links more directly targets the issue.

You know....all these latest ones have the same email provider. That provider (out of India) has only slightly more than 300 employees. India has about a billion people, I bet more than 300 people meet with accidents on the way to work. Shame, I'm just sayin.
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[MatthewV]

I have been noticing old thread being bumped more frequently. We really need some sort of old thread posting block for new members.

[Samadhi]

I was thinking we should add something to block new members from posting in old threads. I've been seeing a lot of that lately.
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And he lived happily ever after. Except for the dieing at the end and the heartbreak in between.

[itisally]

Just an Idea, but would it be possible to create a discussion archive. All discusions in it would be locked but it would still be available to refrence.
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[MatthewV]

So what would it take to prevent people with fewer than X posts from added to a topic that was older than Y days old? I doesn't really matter what X and Y are if they could be changed if current members feel restricted.
Personally I would set X=10 and Y= 365

[Nsof]

Should we allow robots to crawl our profiles?
If not we should update the disallow row to include discussion/profile.php
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[Antrax]

Er... could you send me the file you want in there and I'll upload it? I'm really not a net kind of guy
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After years of disappointment with get rich quick schemes, I know I'm gonna get rich with this scheme. And quick!

[Nsof]

I kind of missed your answer with all the other interesting threads.
I'll prepare and send it to you.
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Will sell this place for beer