Political forum discussion and planning

[Placid Dingo]

Registered as Jubeanation.

[Doktor Howl]

http://dirtypoliticsforum.com/index.php is about as ready for launch as it will ever be.

I suggest a week or two of putting up top quality content, then passing on the link to the Capitol Grilling lot, Nigel's friends etc

Blocked at work. 

I'll reg tonight.

[Cain]

I suspect that is a consequence of the name, unfortunately.

I'm going to spend a few days working on some essays to throw up on there, since, so far, it's early days and pretty quiet still.

[Triple Zero]

http://dirtypoliticsforum.com/index.php is about as ready for launch as it will ever be.

I suggest a week or two of putting up top quality content, then passing on the link to the Capitol Grilling lot, Nigel's friends etc

Blocked at work. 

I'll reg tonight.

That's crazy, how can a freshly registered domain be blocked already?

What's the name of your webnanny software?

[AFK]

It's blocked here too by Websense for "Potentially Damaging Content"

[Cain]

Damnit.

If this is going to be a running theme, we may have to consider changing the forum name/URL.  I'd rather have as few people pre-banned as possible.

[AFK]

Well, don't use my filter as a barometer.  I work under a hospital that will filter out just about anything that might be wrong. 

I mean, I work in behavioral health prevention and I can't fucking access Gambler's Anonymous! 

Sorry.  [/unsolicited soapbox]

[Doktor Howl]

It's blocked here too by Websense for "Potentially Damaging Content"

Websense.

And it is blocking by catagory.

[Cain]

Lots of workplaces and schools use Websense, though, RWHN.  And you and Dok are two people I'd like to be able to access the site while bored at work during the day.

I'm almost certain that it's the name of the website that is the problem.  I've finally got Paypal working, so if that is the root problem and we have to change domain (again), I'm willing to cover the cost.

I'll just have to think of a better name for the forum.

[Triple Zero]

It's blocked here too by Websense for "Potentially Damaging Content"

What does that even mean, potentially damaging what? Your browser? Your sensibilities?

Damnit.

If this is going to be a running theme, we may have to consider changing the forum name/URL.  I'd rather have as few people pre-banned as possible.

It's either keywords in the URL ("dirty" and "forum"), or maybe someone owned the domain name previously and that got blacklisted, or it could be keywords on the site.

The latter is probably unlikely due to the processing involved and real big chance at false positives.

I did a few searches for the domain name history, most of them are paid services, but from what I've been able to gather this name is probably fresh and unused.

Which leaves keywords in the domain. You might be able to patch this for people by using a subdomain of some other site that is not blocked, and pointing it at your server's IP. That way people that are blocked might be able to access the forum via the alternate subdomain. I'm not sure if this would work and whether it might require additional config at your server (does the hosting have a CPanel or something like that?), but adding a subdomain to an existing domain is free (sometimes limited to a number), so anyone's domain would do, really. And it's something to try before actually paying for a new domain name without being sure if that works.

[Doktor Howl]

Lots of workplaces and schools use Websense, though, RWHN.  And you and Dok are two people I'd like to be able to access the site while bored at work during the day.

I'm almost certain that it's the name of the website that is the problem.  I've finally got Paypal working, so if that is the root problem and we have to change domain (again), I'm willing to cover the cost.

I'll just have to think of a better name for the forum.

I'm not sure if it's the domain name or the catagory set for the board (social networking, for example, is a killer).

[Triple Zero]

But the categories are set by the webblocking software, and since the site is brand new, the only info it could have used to determine a category for it would have been the domain name.

[Doktor Howl]

But the categories are set by the webblocking software, and since the site is brand new, the only info it could have used to determine a category for it would have been the domain name.

I'm also blocked from EB&G.

[Salty]

I will look into it today. The host does have cPanel. I also have unlimited domains available, so I could add a subdomain easily.

[Triple Zero]

I will look into it today. The host does have cPanel. I also have unlimited domains available, so I could add a subdomain easily.

cool, but you obviously can't use a subdomain of dirtypoliticsforum.com.

you need the cPanel to tell the server that requests with Host:dpf.innocentdomain.com headers belong to [a particular folder in] your hosting account. I'm assuming you got shared or virtual hosting, which means there are many sites running on the IP of the server with your account on it. When a browser requests a page, it connects to the IP, the only way that the server knows which domain was intended is because the browser request contains a line Host:dirtypoliticsforum.com. So if you point another domain at that IP, you also need to let the server know that requests will come from that hostname (domain).

that is IF the problem is keywords in the domain name. which seems the most plausible explanation to me, but I don't know for sure, hence I'm first suggesting a free option to see if that works. If it works, you can always buy a real proper but innocent-sounding not-sub-domain later.