I’m a regular visitor here and don’t always feel the need to sign in.
I’ve visited here a few times today, the most recent time about a half hour ago. When I visited then, I just typed in the url into my browser and got right here like I always have.
THIS time, just a few minutes ago, I was instead greeted with an anti spam filter which wouldn’t allow me through. It counted down from 3, but when it got to zero, I was not allowed in. This happened twice in a row. I purged my browser’s cache, thinking that maybe it didn’t like one of the privacy settings of Firefox with no add-ons installed. The second time, I got the same results…not allowed in, but I got a link to something called, I believe, clean-talk or something similar. Thinking that offered a way to the site, I perused the site at the link (after Googling the site and trying the site on virustotal). I then proceeded to again purge my browser’s cache completely and try again. Turns out, third times’ the charm…after seeing the anti-spam/anti-crawler page for three seconds, I was allowed through.
As mentioned in the title, I don’t use a VPN, nor have I ever. My IP comes from my provider, and I’ve had it now for quite a long time, come to think of it.
I checked it out at the anti-crawler page and another page to see if it (my IP address) was blacklisted anywhere, but it came back clean.
So, the question remains…why was I suddenly blacklisted as a spammer by this site when I never have been before??
Or, is this a new measure that we all will have to go through now with the added presence of actual spammers from a wide variety or range of IP addresses?
EDIT/UPDATE: I have just found a post on another thread (and that post seems very out of place) asking the same question I did above that was answered by Susan. In her reply, she explains that what I experienced above was a new attempt to help keep the site free of spammers and web crawlers to help us do what we do here, which is to help each other out. Susan’s answer can be found here in the Tasks for the Weekend-January 30, 2021 thread.
One small suggestion to @sb or other Managers…please develop a post on the main blog page to avoid other questions such as mine above. Thanks!
