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  • General discussion about the RAILROAD.NET site, forums, or content ONLY. Please do not post your general railroading questions, please choose an appropriate forum. For help using the site, please post in the Help Using RAILROAD.NET Forum.
General discussion about the RAILROAD.NET site, forums, or content ONLY. Please do not post your general railroading questions, please choose an appropriate forum. For help using the site, please post in the Help Using RAILROAD.NET Forum.

Moderator: Jeff Smith

 #1053095  by ApproachMedium
 
I dont have a spambot on my computer this is a web based only yahoo account and the emails are not related at all to Railroad stuff. They usually end up in my spam box but not always. They only seem to come when topic replys come back from this site. Many of them are the same ads that come in the pop up ads that come from this site, but not all. I think I get the same spams every day though they dont seem to change. I use 4 different PCs one is a Linux machine at work, all of which I am the only user of. I did IT for a living for a few years and am always fixing other peoples PCs so I am pretty aware of what mine is doing and its definitely not coming from there. I only have that email account signed up for this forum and two others of which I have been a member of just as long as RR.net.

Its very possible that others may not see the stuff because their email account or application has a better spam control than others. Yahoo has always been on and off with how well it works. I only mentioned what I saw here because it just seemed like the two things were corresponding to each other. Me getting the spam, and the topic notifications coming in. Oh well, I can live with it.
 #1053104  by MEC407
 
I've had various Yahoo accounts over the years and have had problems with all of them to varying degrees. When I created my most recent Yahoo account, I started getting spam before I even had a chance to give the email address to anyone. I find their spam filter particularly annoying because I've had quite a few legitimate emails from fellow Yahoo users end up in the spam folder; likewise I've sent emails to fellow Yahoo users and they claimed to never receive them -- I told them "check your spam folder" and sure enough, that's where my emails were. I also get a ton of IM spam on Yahoo Messenger, even though I've only given the ID to a handful of people and haven't put it anywhere public (web pages, forum profiles, etc) where bots could see it. For these reasons, I don't use my Yahoo account for anything serious or important, nor do I give Yahoo any personally identifiable information. I've lost count of the number of friends and acquaintances who have had their Yahoo accounts hacked or otherwise compromised. (It has happened to three friends of mine just within the past month!) If I had to guess, I'd speculate that Yahoo may have more security holes in their system than the other webmail/IM providers.

Nowadays when people ask me to recommend a free email site, I suggest Gmail. I've had far fewer problems with Gmail than I'd had with any of the others.
 #1053108  by Jeff Smith
 
I get a ton of stuff in Yahoo too, including spam IM's when I've never even used it. I don't know if it's timed to follow any other emails, but I'm prone to think Yahoo! is the responsible party here.
 #1053114  by ApproachMedium
 
True, it probably is they have gone downhill fairly quick in the past few years. After their recent blocking me of getting email on my Android without downloading their resourcing hogging app its more reasons I should move to Gmail. Thing that sucks is I have had the Yahoo address since 1997!
 #1053121  by charlie6017
 
For what it's worth, Approach, I have a Gmail address too and I also had Yahoo. Gmail
makes it pretty easy to import email from Yahoo, or any email for that matter.

Just food for thought......Charlie
 #1059800  by rslitman
 
Jeff Smith wrote:1. Pop-ups are not going away, rslitman. Do you know how many articles I link on here that give me pop-ups when I go to their site? We have one a day. If I got direct to messages or moderator control panel I don't get the pop up at all. I'm sorry you feel personally offended by a single pop-up on a free site.
Darn! I came here today to find out if there's going to be any relief after almost three months of these. Is this a direct reply to you from the new site owner? How do I get (or did you mean "go"?) direct to messages? Lucky you, to be a moderator, to avoid the pop-up experiences.

I know I'm griping, and this could be cause for me to get booted from the board, but I do want to thank you for everything you do here. So I hope my appreciation will help me to stay here.
Jeff Smith wrote:3. That said, it's not my place to recommend how people should register for the site. F[or what it's worth] I have dedicated emails for several different purposes. Patrick's recommendation is good.
I've finally started doing this. I don't find that I'm getting much, if any, spam from this sight, but my Internet Service Provider does a good job in stopping spam.
 #1059834  by Jeff Smith
 
Nah, I won't boot you for speaking about the site experience, and I do understand the annoyance. I just don't get annoyed as you ;-)

Unfortunately, the pop-up's won't stop. I avoid them by going direct to the private message area; it has nothing to do with being an admin. It's next to the user control panel up top. Or follow any one of the other suggestions given here.
 #1059849  by Patrick Boylan
 
Unlike Regina, and as I have mentioned before, I don't find the popups onerous, I'm still getting only 1 unblocked popup per rr.net magical experience, although I think once in the last week I got a series of them that didn't seem to go away, but I can't swear that it was rr.net that did it.

But from what I understand, Regina's a woman, and they're not like normal people. For example, yesterday I was at Seashore Trolley museum, which has an all you can buy policy, if you slip them enough money they'll let you operate one of their cars for a trip, with accompanying instructor on board. I presented it to my wife as a present, she said "No, you go".
 #1059864  by rslitman
 
Patrick Boylan wrote:Unlike Regina, and as I have mentioned before, I don't find the popups onerous, I'm still getting only 1 unblocked popup per rr.net magical experience, although I think once in the last week I got a series of them that didn't seem to go away, but I can't swear that it was rr.net that did it.

But from what I understand, Regina's a woman, and they're not like normal people. For example, yesterday I was at Seashore Trolley museum, which has an all you can buy policy, if you slip them enough money they'll let you operate one of their cars for a trip, with accompanying instructor on board. I presented it to my wife as a present, she said "No, you go".
Ironically, I may be going to the Seashre Trolley Museum later this month. I would definitely want to operate one of their cars! I'll have to look into this if I get there. (I haven't been there since 2007. I've let my membership lapse, partly because they sent out a membership survey in which they referred to "your wife" instead of "your spouse", but mainly because I don't get there often enough to justify it.) (These days, I do know some women who have wives, plus some men who have husbands, but we won't go there.)

Enough said. Let's keep this on-topic.
 #1060948  by Patrick Boylan
 
My laptop's giving me problems, so I'm using the hotel's public computer. When I open rr.net I see a brief flash, then back to my regularly scheduled program, otherwise no evidence of popup ads. It looks like they have a better popup refusal system than my sick laptop.
 #1072161  by MEC407
 
Have the pop-up ads gotten DRAMATICALLY more frequent for anyone else, or is it just me? I've gotten more than 20 of them just in the past half hour that I've been browsing the forums. And that's with a pop-up blocker enabled!

These are some hardcore guerilla pop-ups!
 #1072283  by prr60
 
MEC407 wrote:Have the pop-up ads gotten DRAMATICALLY more frequent for anyone else, or is it just me? I've gotten more than 20 of them just in the past half hour that I've been browsing the forums. And that's with a pop-up blocker enabled!

These are some hardcore guerilla pop-ups!
Have they ever. The "one a day" guideline is long gone. Most sites will not stack pop-unders on top of each other (if one is open, no more will load), but not here. They just keep on coming. As I write this, there are five separate pop-unders open. Browse the forums and you could get dozens open unless you stop and close each one as it opens. I didn't mind a single pop-under once in a while, but this site is becoming like adware. A lot of loyal members are going to leave.
 #1072309  by charlie6017
 
prr60 wrote:
MEC407 wrote:Have the pop-up ads gotten DRAMATICALLY more frequent for anyone else, or is it just me? I've gotten more than 20 of them just in the past half hour that I've been browsing the forums. And that's with a pop-up blocker enabled!

These are some hardcore guerilla pop-ups!
Have they ever. The "one a day" guideline is long gone. Most sites will not stack pop-unders on top of each other (if one is open, no more will load), but not here. They just keep on coming. As I write this, there are five separate pop-unders open. Browse the forums and you could get dozens open unless you stop and close each one as it opens. I didn't mind a single pop-under once in a while, but this site is becoming like adware. A lot of loyal members are going to leave.
Well.............the owner wants a return on his investment, you know! (rolls eyes)

He isn't going to earn a dime from me, though. I don't come on here a whole lot anymore as it
is--a far cry from what I used to, and that's okay with me. It's obvious the owner see this as a
business venture only and it shows. Jeff, you have done a nice job here and you're a good guy.
But I have finally had enough. When the owner starts slamming this place with the pop-ups, it's not
a good thing. I'll be damned if I am going to risk infecting my computers for this guy to make a few
extra bucks---I'm not having it! And he'll keep doing it..........we have complained before, and he will
maybe relent due to our out-cries but in the end, he does this again and THEN some!

With that, please de-activate my account, as I am done. The aggravation from this is outweighing any
positivity. I have 2 computers, an older desk-top that I am trying to milk another year out of and a lap-top.
They cost money and I refuse to risk subjecting them to possible malicious adware and spyware. My money
is tight and I'm sure there are others that are in the same situations. So I will no longer take my chances here.

Best regards,
Charlie
 #1072385  by ApproachMedium
 
Yea I seem to be getting the pop UPs now too, they are no longer unders. The pop up is better at least i can close it, but its still annoying and seems to happen anytime I click a reply link on the site. I really dont see pop ups or unders in todays day of computers being a good attractive device for users since many find them annoying.
 #1072541  by MEC407
 
They're becoming overwhelming at this point. Like ApproachMedium, I too am receiving one (or sometimes two) pop-ups every time I reply to a message. I'm also getting multiple pop-ups every time I have to approve messages from new members, which slows things down.

I hate to say it, but if I was unfamiliar with RAILROAD.NET and I came to the site today for the first time, there's almost no chance that I'd sign up to become a member. I'm very distrustful of web sites that bombard their users with ads in such an intrusive and forceful manner.

There are hundreds of very successful web sites that make money hand-over-fist, and they've found ways to use advertising in a manner that is tasteful and minimally invasive. RAILROAD.NET can, and should, learn from those sites. I say this as someone who is fiercely loyal to RAILROAD.NET, someone who spreads the word about the site at every chance I get. I hope that counts for something.
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