liliputing-community

I mentioned last week that I had to take the forums temporarily to deal with a security issue. Here’s what it was: basically the site got hacked. As far as I can tell, someone used the forums to upload a script that made its way into the main web site and caused pages to load slowly. I think it may also have been attempting to do deeper damage by redirecting site visitors, but I didn’t see any evidence of this first hand.

The forums were the only section of the web site where users could upload files as avatars, pictures, or other attachments. And that’s always going to pose a security risk. So after thinking things over, I’ve decided to take a new approach in relaunching the forums. I didn’t want to bring you a stripped down forum that doesn’t offer personalization options. But I don’t have the time or expertise to wage a full out battle against malicious hackers. So instead I’m outsourcing the forums to Ning, a service that can handle threats in a more secure fashion. You can find the new forums by clicking the forums link in navigation bar at the top of this page. Or you can bookmark the new page for the Liliputing Forum.

As an added bonus, the new forums are part of a larger Liliputing Community site that offers users the ability to upload photos, videos, create personal profiles, and generally get their social networking on. There’s even a built-in instant messaging feature that will let you chat in real-time with other users that are online. Oh yeah, you can also post threaded messages in the forums section. I’m still tinkering with the new site, so feel free to share any suggestions, either here or at the Liliputing Community/Forum page. I’m even open to changing the name if you think “community” sounds too cheesy.

I didn’t want to make all the old posts that you’ve uploaded over the past few months disappear in a poof of smoke. So I’ve brought back the old forums as well, but just for archival purposes. You can still read over all of the posts at www.liliputing.com/forums, but I’ve disabled new member registrations and new posts from existing members.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

13 replies on “Introducing the Liliputing Forums v2, and the Liliputing Community”

  1. Can’t tell. It is our IT policy to block ning.

    Access Denied (policy_denied)

    1. Uggh.

      Well, if the new forums pick up I might shell out the few bucks a
      month it would cost me to use a custom domain. If the forums were
      still hosted by Ning but the domain was community.liliputing.com would
      that help?

      Brad

      1. It would probably help, but I don’t know how many people this effects.

    2. Do you know if it’s the domain or the IP address that’s blocked? If it’s the IP address, using different domains to point to it may be a wild goose chase.

    1. I’m getting a server error from Ning right now. I have an email in to
      support to see if I can get it worked out. Are you sure it’s Ning and
      not just the same server error?

  2. Just to advise that the read-only forum back-end is two versions out of date, which presumably contributed to the aforementioned security issues. Although it is read-only now, it may still be worth patching to 1.1.9 in case of other resolved problems.

    1. If you log into the admin panel, you should see a red warning notice that will take you through the required steps. It will be up to date in seconds.

  3. Too bad all the old posts are gone. No information to search for people looking for answers.

    1. Apparently they’re all still there and searchable, just not writable.

      I had a hunch there was going to be a major change in the forums. Guess I better mosey over there and sign up.

Comments are closed.