PanamintValley.com

Hello washboarding community,

Whenever I try to access this forum I get a message saying:
You have been permanently banned from this board. Please contact the Board Administratorfor more information. A ban has been issued on your IP address.

Next I try to access the forum at the office: same message. So I e-mail the Board Administrators, e-mail them twice. Looks like my e-mail address is also blacklisted, because: no reply.

Now I'm using yet another ip-address to be able to ask: Could someone please explain what's going on?

Oh great! You found a way in...

I'm just kidding. I've never heard of your problem happening before and I'll look into having it fixed.

I'm not a moderator nor the administrator, but have been a long time member of this forum. I've seen this and have had it happen to myself.

This board, as well as all others, get a ton of spammers, bots and malware (human or software). So the administrators occasionally do software updates that look for IP addresses and other similarities to undesireable people or bots, as the intent of this forum is to keep it clean, civil and topically within the spectrum (although we do get off on the fringes of what constitutes the Panamint Valley and Death Valley region at times ... ).

Whenever the software is updated, it often locks people out. It has happened to me from time to time. So I keep a copy of the email addresses of a couple of the moderators to email them and let them know "Hey! You locked me out again!" and so they unlock the door for me. So to speak.

So don't feel bad. In fact, it's likely that one of the several moderators or even Charlie himself (owner/administrator) has already seen this or will shortly do so, and will open the gates to Panamint Valley.

Wow that's never happened to me although some people would love the idea...

A couple of months ago I downloaded a number wonderful color pictures from this forum, like the ones taken by that Scandinavian birdwatcher. I wasn't a member of the forum at that time. My actions may have caused a suspectable amount of network traffic.

It looks like my permanent ban has now been lifted. Because this guest book is meant for introductions, please allow me to...

Hello, I'm from old Europe. Over the past ten years or so I've visited Death Valley and the Panmints several times. While doing so, you often run into interesting people. They're always able to tell you some story about the places you visit. But this only makes you eager to find out more about such places. So I'm subscribed to the Panamint Breeze, visit Death Valley Talk now and then, and while doing internet-searches, I often end up on this forum.

I don't think I have ever met any of you members though, but I do recognize some names from the Breeze and other forums.

Ernie

Welcome! I'm glad the problem with your accessing the forum has been resolved. Feel free to share your desert experiences with us, we can always learn something new. Keep us posted as to when you come out - you never know when some of us might be out in the desert at the same time. Shoot, some of us even work out there, including my son this summer.

David Bricker / SYR

I had the same problem the last weeks, and thanks to David I'm finally able to read here again.
I don't post much, I know, but I read a lot and love the stories about DV.

Thanks for the help david, again!

Welcome, Pete. Glad we could get things going for you.

It seems the problem tends to be with some of our Euopean friends. As David Wright mentioned, we have some fairly large blocks of ip addresses banned that are based in countries such as the Ukrain, Russia, Africa (yes, I know it's not in Europe), and so forth. A disproportionate amount of spam come from these ip ranges. Unfortunately, there are legitimate addresses within those ranges.

So, hopefully we aren't blocking too many legitimate folks while trying to keep the board spam free. The spammers clearly have more time on their hands than we do, so it is an interesting battle.

We know the Europeans have a great interest in the Death Valley area. Anyone who'se been to PSR in the summer is greeted with an amazing variety of languages being spoken on the porch. It's really quite fun to be able to share our interest in the area, regardless of our background. We glad to have you here!

David Bricker / SYR

Thanks David, I'm glad there is such a great place to read and talk about Death Valley, a lot of people don't understand why I love that place.

And thanks again for unbanning me a 2nd time.