It is a good thing they do. On anther forum I follow, earlier this month, there was a new thread started with a seemingly appropriate, to the topic, single sentence opening line, that seemed like it may have been written by someone who’s first language was not English, but certainly not bad enough to raise suspicion. I was “this close” to hitting a link, when I carefully read the link through and realized I could have bought the farm with some type of virus or malware. It struck me that the bad guys are getting altogether too sophisticated.
One of my favorite web comics has a cartoon about opening a mystery email attachment, having backed up their mail server, separated the computer from the network, and then opened the attachment. It’s like that with links now. My former job was ecommerce support (a major player, but shall remain unnamed cause I’m still with the company in another capacity). Be very, very, very careful even clicking on links that look legit. The text can say google but link you to something nasty. I’m glad the mods have to approve posts. It was a bit frustrating at first, but my “it’s better for everyone” spidey sense kicked in and I made it through without a scratch. Mentioning the spike museum in north platte, what is the best time of year to go for a tour etc? I’m in Omaha now but don’t fancy a ~16 hour trip to see one thing then be ushered out the door.
Welcome Here ! [#welcome] But I might offer a suggestion. The subject on this particular Forum is generally about things concerning 12 inch to 1 foot gauge of railroading. Might suggest your interests in modeling, and specifically layouts might be better served on the Model Railroader Forum. You are certainly welcome here, but as I said, your time, and interests might be better used as suggested! [:-^]
About the moderation of 'newcomer’s thing, the first group of mods appointed by Bergie five years ago, almost, pleaded with trains.com management to allow us to screen the first few posts to ensure the newbie was not a troll or spam, etc. It was a dead-simple solution to one particular outlier in the list of ‘bad apples’, for want of a better term. This person was a most persistent troll who frequented the model forum. Especially on weekends, he would post the most vile personal attacks, using the usual get-arounds to the language filter, and did so with impunity. We would know to be on line and prepared to delete hundreds of filthy messages…and I am not kidding.
The management agreed, and that is the legacy you see today. The policy, loosely, was to scrutinize the first four or five posts, wait for some sort of pattern to the first few exchanges to develop, and then to ‘relent’ and pass the person on to the general membership unfettered. Our secondary defence was that we could see the IP addresses of the newcomers and their emails, which the two or three worst bad apples couldn’t hide from us. Between this one troll’s penchant for creative but revealing choices of user-names, his IP, and our ability to notice familiar posting content, we got the upper hand.
It is generally safer and more sensible to put people on probation until we can establish that they will fit in well.
When I saw you posting here again, it made me smile. I contacted the moderators and put in a good word for you. I told them that I couldn’t remember you ever having any issues with anybody on the forum before. I figure that either means you’re a good egg, or I have a bad memory. Either way, welcome back.