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@Nicolas: can it be controlled that the private messages that arrive to the guestbook have a url and in that case automatically delete them?
I mean that if they have a url in the text of the message, it will be deleted without appearing in the message list.
The problem we have is that the Guestbook is unusable due to so much spam that we receive, yesterday there were more than 50 pages!

@Nicolas if you have any solution for the spam problem in the Guestbook that would be great. I don't know if my idea is viable or if there is anything that can be done.

And another thing: We are with three moderators at the moment, of which two are really active (on a daily’s basis). And it has been like that for a long time now. We can’t keep up with the pattern checking, especially the alphas and the kumihimos. Is it possible to lock the alpha en kumihimo generators for normal users? So that they can still use it and make a screenshot for their own use, but can’t save it to the site. It would be nice if moderators could still upload these patterns in case someone uploads a picture and would like to have it attached to the pattern. If that doesn’t happen to often moderators could generate the pattern, especially if it’s for kumihimo.
Only other solution is to just stop checking…..

@Celicia I think it would make sense to discard any guestbook message that contains a link. I'll try to make a rule so that some URL are considered (ex: URL that might point directly to this website) and discard everything else.

@Kleinevos : I'm trying to find an alternative to either block the save for regular users or stop checking entirely... I'm curious, what's most time consuming in the alpha pattern checking? Would there be a way to make pattern checking process easier/faster for you?

I see that allowing users to save the pattern "privately" could be a potential solution, but that's something that requires much more development and that still comes with issues to be resolved (no review = risk of containing violent/hate connotation content = risk of getting the site shutdown)...

Last thing, would limiting number of "submitted patterns per 24h period" solve a big part of the issue in you opinion? This could be easier to develop & maybe could solve the "volume" issue. Let me know.

@Celicia - I'll try to develop the new feature to prevent messages with links in the guestbook this week. I'll get back to you.

@Nicolas It would be great if you could limit the urls in that way, only leaving those that refer to the site.

For me the problem with alpha patterns is that in addition to checking that they are not on our site, we also check (usually) with Google and on BraceletBook.
Also, I think that for most users it is easier to generate an alpha and they upload any drawing that comes to mind. Searching the internet we found that there are many copies.

Personally, many times I take a screenshot and use the Google Photos "Lens" to search for the same or similar image and from there I check the Internet. I don't know if there is any way to do a similar verification "automatically"? Maybe not to discard the pattern directly but to return a comment with an address where we can see the similar one to start from there with the external verification. I don't want to complicate you!

I don't see much use in limiting the number of patterns within 24 hours (at least the alpha ones) because in reality generally there aren't that many that are sent per day but rather the slowness is the verification that is done from scratch in all cases.

I don't know what @Kleinevos's vision of the problem with the alphas is, but I'm sure that when it comes to the kumihimo she is the one who has the experience.

I don’t know if limiting number of "submitted patterns per 24h period" would be a solution. I think it would for kumihimos, but probably less for alphas. Not many users are posting many alphas on the same day.
What takes most time is visually checking each individual pattern against the patterns we have, and against existing logos (on google), for example. It’s often hard to come up with the right keywords to limit the amount of patterns to check against. And with the right keywords it’s often still a very long list of patterns.

About the inappropriate private patterns: Like it is now, we reject these inappropriate patterns. But they are still on the server. So what’s the difference when they were only privately uploaded and thus not publicly visible?

And I agree with Celicia about the checking against patterns that are not on here.

Hi all,

I've just deployed an update to block anything that could look like an URL in the guestbook when the use is not authenticated. Be aware that when something that could look like a link is detected in the message, it'll look like the message was send successfully. I wanted to give as little information as possible to avoid that spammers try to find a way around the validation (the less information the have, the better).

For the alpha verification, I'll try to find a way that could ease your task without generating a bunch of new development. Just curious though : do you think it would be acceptable to make the verification process less thorough? It would definitively make your task easier. If we receive some complaints about duplicates we could then take action... Let me know what's you opinion.