mighlani

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Hi -

I wanted to post a serious question about a linux problem that I am experiencing. There are no domains i am advertising or anything like that.

How can I post my question ?

Thanks and regards
mighlani

Nylex

If you need to post a link, then you can use something like "www dot something dot com/page dot htm". There are perhaps other ways, too (be creative?). If you can though, try and help people, thus increasing your post count and letting you post links .

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mighlani

Thanks .. but I needed to show a snapshot of a log file. I guess I'll simply have to wait till my count goes up. Quite odd for an online forum though.

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Nylex

It's there to prevent spam. Can you not just post the contents of the file?

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mighlani

Thats what I tried. Its a maillog regarding sendmail. So it will undoubtedly have email addresses. I even tried putting something generic but no joy.

But I do understand your point about spam. Its the age old thing. Few culprits spoil the fun for community.

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J.W.

The "minimum post rule" for URL's is indeed intended to block spam. As you might guess, the site admin needed to determine a reasonable compromise between preventing spammers from flooding the forums with advertisments, but also to avoid creating obstacles for legitimate users from posting links.

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titanium_geek

The idea is that bots sign up and post once- then move on. So after 5 posts in the old days, you could post links. now it's 3 posts, is it not?

titanium_geek

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hs123

You can post the url without the http:// and www part. It'll be ok then.

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SirMsquared

Or just post without the link, then edit it. For example, my post here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...69#post2227569

But really, that's not the solution. Better ways of determining that a real person is posting is the solution. Something like Captcha would work fine.

Sure, but if you use something like Captcha at registration time and at post time, you will confirm that a person performed both operations, and did so with a verified email address. Surely that's too hard for the spammer at the moment?

How about a combination of both approaches: For registration and the first x posts (x could be higher than the current 3 non-URL post limit, since it's less of an inconvenience than not posting URLs) Captcha is required, then afterwards it's not.

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jeremy

We already use captcha for registration. Two comments: First, I don't think requiring captcha for 100% of new users is more convenient then now allowing URLs for the <5% that need a URL immediately. More importantly, we get a fair amount of hit-and-run *manual* spammers who would happily fill out the captcha. The no URL policy usually means they try a couple times, and move on to an easier target.

--jeremy

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Simon Bridge

Top 3 ways of getting to post a URL.

1. Get involved with the community:
... look through the zero-reply threads and help three people before you make your first post. You should be able to find three issues you can at least comment on. As an added bonus you'll establish an early rep as someone worth talking to. The really experienced folk here will give better replies to people they feel are contributing.

2. Tax your English writing skills:
Write the URL in its searchable format ... say: "I found that the open source version of "foo" from "bar.org" worked well, though my mate still preferrs the proprietary version from tanstaafl.com" instead. Thus anyone googling "foo" in connection with either domain should hit the right page in the top five.

3. Hack the parser:
(a) Leave off the entire "http://www." part at the front.
(b) Disable "automatically parse urls" in your profile.
(While you're at it, you could add your distro and location there too ...)

4. Start a Thread (or three) about why this is lame...
You sould be able to get three easy posts out of protesting the policy while the hackers all try to tell you why it isn't Honestly; I'm surprised Jeremy dosn't just respond with a link to the standard reply-set.

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