Post by Thomas Cameron on Oct 14, 2003 10:10:16 GMT -6
Here's something to amuse the Camerons out there. A few of you know this tale. If you've been around for a while you might remember this taking place...
Our old message board center (pre-2002) was also hosted by another free boards system. They did not require, nor give us control, over whom posted there. On this, our new board, we are able to designate whether anyone can post or just our members (we enabled a members-only board.) On the old board we had no such option.
After the old boards had been up for a while, strange postings began to appear on the For Sale/Trade thread. It seems that somehow a large group of Chinese businesses acquired the URL of that board and began to regularly post their wares for sale. Our instructions, to post items related to Camerons/Scotland, was largely ignored. They usually peddled plumbing and other industrial parts, but often made mention to toy manufacturing and other related items. The real point here is that they had nothing to do with Clan Cameron or Scotland.
The messages were amusing at first, written in broken English, but there were days in which 10 postings would appear. My only recourse was to go in there, every morning, and delete (for they appeared overnight.) While they eventually died down, the postings never completely went away. Even at the end (when our old free board system shut down to all its users, due to a corporate take-over) there were still one to three posts each day.
I do remember sending at least one of them an equally confusing message, written in incorrect English, just to confuse the situation. A Chinese friend of mine at work (who encourages me to have fun with just these kinds of situations) tells me that it must have really sent them for a loop!
It's good to see that - so far - this board has remained clean and free of such postings. The good news is if there was ever a similar effort, these individuals could be banned from future postings, based on their I.P. address.
Regardless of that situation, let's see what you have for sale or would like to acquire. It's like they always say: "What you don't ask for, you don't get!"
Our old message board center (pre-2002) was also hosted by another free boards system. They did not require, nor give us control, over whom posted there. On this, our new board, we are able to designate whether anyone can post or just our members (we enabled a members-only board.) On the old board we had no such option.
After the old boards had been up for a while, strange postings began to appear on the For Sale/Trade thread. It seems that somehow a large group of Chinese businesses acquired the URL of that board and began to regularly post their wares for sale. Our instructions, to post items related to Camerons/Scotland, was largely ignored. They usually peddled plumbing and other industrial parts, but often made mention to toy manufacturing and other related items. The real point here is that they had nothing to do with Clan Cameron or Scotland.
The messages were amusing at first, written in broken English, but there were days in which 10 postings would appear. My only recourse was to go in there, every morning, and delete (for they appeared overnight.) While they eventually died down, the postings never completely went away. Even at the end (when our old free board system shut down to all its users, due to a corporate take-over) there were still one to three posts each day.
I do remember sending at least one of them an equally confusing message, written in incorrect English, just to confuse the situation. A Chinese friend of mine at work (who encourages me to have fun with just these kinds of situations) tells me that it must have really sent them for a loop!
It's good to see that - so far - this board has remained clean and free of such postings. The good news is if there was ever a similar effort, these individuals could be banned from future postings, based on their I.P. address.
Regardless of that situation, let's see what you have for sale or would like to acquire. It's like they always say: "What you don't ask for, you don't get!"