About Profile Data Wiped

Blog Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by Todd, Dec 3, 2021.

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  1. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Bad News: Due to a significant uptick in spam accounts, I've been forced to wipe the "About You" data for all user profiles and turn on manual account approvals.

    For those who use the section for trading or other forms of tracking, I apologize for the inconvenience, but there wasn't a cleaner way to handle this due to the number of spam accounts using the about section as the primary method to inject spam.

    These aren't bots. Theses are real people who are finding workarounds to post spam links and keywords. We've also started to see spammers add "beers" and post "reviews." Manual account approvals should help thwart this until we're able to upgrade, but I'll continue to monitor with help from the mod team.

    Good News: I'm creating a temporary page that'll give you access to the last change that you made to your About. So, if you've made an edit within recent years you should be able to retrieve it. I hope to make this accessible within the next two days for those who need it.

    Update: Under Your Account > Personal Details, I've added a link to check for a backup of your About. If one exists, it'll pull the last edit made before the wipe.

    Thanks,
     
    #1 Todd, Dec 3, 2021
    tacosandbeer, kemoarps, mactrail and 32 others like this.
  2. RaulMondesi

    RaulMondesi Grand Pooh-Bah (5,343) Dec 11, 2006 California
    Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Just as long as my reviews don’t disappear my life still has meaning.
     
    #2 RaulMondesi, Dec 3, 2021
    gatornation, TCgenny, joaopmgoncalves and 47 others like this.
  3. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Everything is backed up on a regular basis.
     
    #3 Todd, Dec 3, 2021
    TCgenny, Whyteboar, needMIbeer and 9 others like this.
  4. officerbill

    officerbill Pooh-Bah (2,228) Feb 9, 2019 New York
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    To boost a beer's ratings? How would someone profit off of doing this?
     
    #4 officerbill, Dec 3, 2021
    TCgenny, kemoarps and Jaycase like this.
  5. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Nope. The beer and review were fake. Nothing to do with beer. And spammers do all of this purely for search engine optimization/rankings. We saw this with our old events calendar too.
     
    #5 Todd, Dec 3, 2021
    TCgenny, Whyteboar, kemoarps and 7 others like this.
  6. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Update: Under Your Account > Personal Details, I've added a link to check for a backup of your About. If one exists, it'll pull the last edit made before the wipe.
     
    #6 Todd, Dec 3, 2021
    TCgenny, joaopmgoncalves, matuka123 and 10 others like this.
  7. snaotheus

    snaotheus Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,924) Oct 6, 2008 Washington
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    I notice there is still an "About You" section in my personal details. Are we allowed to fill them again?
     
    #7 snaotheus, Dec 3, 2021
  8. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Yep. I wiped the data, not the functionality.
     
    #8 Todd, Dec 3, 2021
    Whyteboar, sulldaddy, Beer_Economicus and 2 others like this.
  9. snaotheus

    snaotheus Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,924) Oct 6, 2008 Washington
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Got it, thanks!
     
    #9 snaotheus, Dec 3, 2021
    Todd likes this.
  10. beerjerk666

    beerjerk666 Grand Pooh-Bah (5,155) Aug 22, 2010 Florida
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Nice. I worked very hard to compile my About info. Thankfully it was all still there. LOL!
     
    #10 beerjerk666, Dec 4, 2021
    Resistance88, joaopmgoncalves, Whyteboar and 6 others like this.
  11. Rug

    Rug Grand Pooh-Bah (3,454) Aug 20, 2018 Massachusetts
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Cool, thanks for getting this worked out!
     
    #11 Rug, Dec 4, 2021
    Shanex, Harrison8 and Todd like this.
  12. LiquidAmber

    LiquidAmber Grand Pooh-Bah (5,734) Feb 20, 2009 Washington
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    Bummer. What a world.....
     
    #12 LiquidAmber, Dec 4, 2021
    Whyteboar, micada and Harrison8 like this.
  13. Smakawhat

    Smakawhat Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,191) Mar 18, 2008 Maryland
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    Thanks for being transparent, I had no idea this happened until you mentioned it.

    I just looked, and my old posting... manifesto... screed?? I wrote up about myself is gone. :thinking_face:

    It's ok, not a big deal. :nerd:

    I appreciate you mentioning this. Many organizations wouldn't have said anything, or worse blamed it on something else or just not even bothered telling their user base.

    Very much appreciate that you took responsibility.

    Thanks as always for your work and also the team that keep BA up and running.

    Cheers!
     
    #13 Smakawhat, Dec 5, 2021
    TCgenny, Whyteboar, Junior and 10 others like this.
  14. dcotom

    dcotom Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,637) Aug 4, 2014 Iowa
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Thank you for taking care of this. Worked like a charm! :beers:
     
    #14 dcotom, Dec 6, 2021
    TCgenny, Bouleboubier, officerbill and 5 others like this.
  15. Shanex

    Shanex Grand Pooh-Bah (4,960) Dec 10, 2015 France
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    My personal infos and details were pretty shitty either way, so it’s good that it was wiped out and cleared so I can rewrite it or else leave it blank. :wink:

    More seriously, it’s indeed mostly used by traders to try and keep track of who they’ve been trading with, what such and such members enjoy as style.

    Good work @Todd and the team of which I belong. Genuine compliments never hurt and people tend to be greedy about that.
     
    #15 Shanex, Dec 7, 2021
    TCgenny, Harrison8, Victory_Sabre1973 and 6 others like this.
  16. donspublic

    donspublic Grand Pooh-Bah (3,552) Aug 4, 2014 Texas
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Yeah I am in IT and we would have told the customer that there was a drive failure on the database and the last copy of that table was on a corrupted disk, very rare occurrence, but it does happen
     
    #16 donspublic, Dec 7, 2021
    mactrail, TCgenny, rgordon and 4 others like this.
  17. MistaRyte

    MistaRyte Pooh-Bah (2,681) Jan 14, 2008 Virginia
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    "Beer drinking mammal with opposable thumbs"... hooray, backup recovered
     
    #17 MistaRyte, Dec 7, 2021
    mactrail, TCgenny, Harrison8 and 2 others like this.
  18. spicoli00

    spicoli00 Pooh-Bah (2,305) Jul 6, 2005 Indiana
    Pooh-Bah

    Likes beer
    Is a jerk
    Hail Satan!
    :wink:
     
    #18 spicoli00, Dec 7, 2021
    TCgenny, Resistance88, Shanex and 2 others like this.
  19. jjamadorphd

    jjamadorphd Pooh-Bah (2,496) Jul 21, 2012 Florida
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Keep up the good work on my most favorite of sites!
     
    #19 jjamadorphd, Dec 8, 2021
    TCgenny, Todd, Bitterbill and 1 other person like this.
  20. Mikexw

    Mikexw Pooh-Bah (2,314) Mar 3, 2014 New York
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Thanks for the transparency and the heads up — I was able to recover all my info.
     
    #20 Mikexw, Dec 9, 2021
    TCgenny and Todd like this.
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