UK IP addresses banned?

[AndrewGPaul]

OK, so this isn't an introduction, but I couldn't see anywhere else to put it.

I linked to The Other Dave's "The Thread Where Dave Puts Pictures of His Epic Stuff" thread on my club's Facebook page, since there's been a few people taking up Epic, and I thought they'd appreciate the inspiration. However, at least two of them have seen the "You have been permanently banned from this board. Please contact the Board Administrator for more information. A ban has been issued on your IP address." message.

I get it when I access the forum via 3G on my phone, on 3. One other user is on Sky broadband. Was there a wave of UK-based spammers once upon a while?

[Seneschal]

I have the same problem accessing the boards from the UK - every so often, it says I'm IP banned; then it's OK the next day. Seems to happen most often on BT internet for me.

P.S.
久し振り! I'm living in Oxford at the moment.

[Primarch]

Yes, there were a bunch of spam bots messing up the boards a while back and a bunch of IP addresses were put on a blacklist. I will see what I can do to edit that list later today, but if it leads to the spam bots returning then the IPs will be banned again.

#EDIT#
Ok, I just de-banned all the IP addresses on the list as it was impossible to tell who they were all registered to. If more spam bots creep up, the addresses they use will go back on the list.

For those of you linking to this site elsewhere, please feel free to copy/paste the following.

Thanks to everyone who has expressed an interest in visiting our forum. I apologise for the 'banned' message you received when you tried to view the forums. This was due to a rather large volume of spam posting automated programs that hit our site about a year ago, so please dont take it personally. (Unless of course you ARE a spam posting automated program). All of the IP bans have been removed now so you should be able to view the forums freely. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Regards
Primarch, NagoyaHammer Site Admin.

[AndrewGPaul]

Cheers!