Slashdot Mirror
How To Keep a Web Site Local?
Cornwallis writes "The universal accessibility of the Internet is one of its attractions. But what do you do when you don't want your board to be Slashdotted? Back in the day it was great to run a local BBS where friends and neighbors could dial in using their 9600-baud modems to pick up mail or share games or stories. Now, my Web-based board gets slammed by people from all over the world who have no reason to access it, can't possibly take advantage of the locally focused services it offers, and generally take up my time because I have to block their accounts or explain to them why they can't have access. This despite the fact that the board explains quite clearly that it is for local use only and couldn't possibly be of interest to them. Other than putting thousands of entries in my hosts file to block IP ranges, what options do I have to restrict access to locals only? Or isn't that feasible?"
I agree that this probably should not be solved purely on the technology end of things. One of the great things about the Internet is that one can access things from most anywhere. Your website may cater to locals, but you need to consider the possibility that someone who is generally local to the area but currently elsewhere might want to access the site. That's a pretty serious problem for filtering based on geography.
A couple of years ago we started to get a lot of people signing up from China, India, Russia etc and then posting spam. So now, to register with the forum you have to answer a question that requires you have some local knowledge. That gets rid of most automatic signups. And secondly, the accounts are not activated automatically but have to be approved by an administrator. So we delete those with spammy URLs in their signatures ("Buy WOW gold" seems to be a common variety). In a small community, the number of real local people siging up is a few per week. Maybe a couple of spammers get past that in a month, and then their posts and accounts are quickly deleted.
Best to only apply this restriction to account creation. Requiring them to be local when they make the account is entirely understandable, but blocking them from logging in while traveling is not.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
That's a pretty serious problem for filtering based on geography.
No kidding. Basically, anyone who thinks geography-based filtering is a good idea should be shot. Imagine moving 2000 miles, then being told by some braindead webdesigner you can't talk to your friends anymore.
Yes, exactly: "... you may want to be careful with IP address filtering since that can result in unexpected disadvantages when a local is out traveling."
Don't expect that your users stay in one place.
Do expect that they sometimes travel to other countries.
And it sounds like you've never had to pay for things like bandwidth and server space out of your own pocket. Maybe he wants to keep it small because that's what he can afford. Information may want to be free, but the infrastructure to host it never is.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
And then brace yourself, because you're going to get an earful from the next local person who tries to catch up with her friends back home while she's on holiday, only to be told that she's banned because she's "not local".