Hello COLOURlovers!

I've been working hard to try to get some answers.

This makes me sad to announce, but we have had to trade fighting the amount of spam attacking the site for some of the 3rd party code breaking. It wasn't planned, and it is currently our only choice.

I know this is frustrating.

I want you all to visualize something for me today.... truly...

COLOURlovers is like a big old adventuring ship.
She's sails around the world collecting shipmates from all over.
She keeps sailing around the world and dives in to adventure after adventure with colorful gusto.
Travelers have brought fancy new treasures aboard (3rd party code)

She's beautiful!
She's a grand old ship
and everyone loves to rock and sway in the wind
and join the travels with her!

But she is just that, she's a beautiful, old ship.
She's still sailing!
She hasn't been put in the shipyard just yet!
She's a fighter!

She creaks and groans, but she keeps pushing through the water.
Pirates (aka spam) have attacked over the years,
She's fought them off one by one.

However, as of late, an entire slew of pirates have been attacking!
Not just one or two, an entire fleet!
Threatening to stop her in the water!
Threatening to sink her to the bottom!
The onslaught is relentless!

So while we can still enjoy the ride and adventures
in this trusty old ship, we can't bring as many treasures
(3rd party code) with us. ;)

I hope you all can hang in there with this dramatic change in how you all use the site. I DO KNOW how intense this change will be for much of the creators here. If we can withstand the changes it is my hope we can eventually find a solution or go back to our old one.

Currently we have NO RESOURCES to handle the amount of needs our old ship needs at the moment. Right now, the Spam Filter is your best bet to be able to actually USE the site.

So bear with us/me and keep creating best you can.

Thank you so much for all your support! ~ Molly

We all love this ship and hope she will sail for longer time.As for the winds of changes and the storms she faces,wish the crew best of luck❤

thank you for your understanding and sweet words. I really hope this particular storm is temporary....

Currently any state of temporary this big may mean some months down the road.
<3
albenaj wrote:

We all love this ship and hope she will sail for longer time.As for the winds of changes and the storms she faces,wish the crew best of luck❤

Personally, I am still seeing some of the 3rd Party JS tools on profiles working.

hello.
You do not have the resources to 'Navy Seal' the pirates....perhaps you do.
Certainly I am not qualified. However, your huge beautiful community may include competently qualified people whom are willing to come on board and battle the pirates !
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArrrrrr

hah! I'm sure there are some in the community with the ability.

We simply do not have any allocated resources (at this time) to fight spam AND hold on to the code and handle the large task-heavy chore of maintaining the site at peak level. :)

rollzone wrote:

hello.
You do not have the resources to 'Navy Seal' the pirates....perhaps you do.
Certainly I am not qualified. However, your huge beautiful community may include competently qualified people whom are willing to come on board and battle the pirates !
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArrrrrr

Just to be clear, we can keep the treasure we have if it isn't sinking the shop right, we don't have to dump it overboard to outrun the pirates?

i.e. If the code still works we are okay to keep using it?

because a lot of the display code IS still working, we might have to do the odd tweak but there are still many display option open for us.

Mouse, I notice that if I go to alter anything on a post after clicking "edit pattern" (where I have the old code), I lose my coded pattern image. It becomes that infamous black stripe. So I will leave those old ones as is, and for new patterns, move to the code you and desvil have specified. I will slowly change the old ones if we need to purge all that unsafe code.

It would be a mammoth task to go back and purge old display coding but I don't think we need to .... the site works with what is already there and any new posts are governed by the new safeguards (to prevent pirates boarding the ship), hence we can't re-post vulnerable old code and if you edit you have to update to the safer methods...

but what is already there seems to be okay since the ship is still sailing and there now seem to be fewer pirates getting on board...... and presumably they'd have disabled all the pre-existing coding as well if it was causing a problem.

It's not after all the code itself as what it allows you to do that is the problem, we might have been deploying it in a benign fashion but the spammers were not.

I guess we just play it by ear and if we have to go change stuff, we go change stuff...

YES YES! please KEEP anything that's viable! :) I do see some of the working ones still in action. Don't go deleting things.

The situation is just as it is, the Spam Filter broke things and at this point no one is available to actively work on fixing both (so it's a big huge site-bandaid) - it's just a matter of fact if it's broken, at this point, it's not going to be worked on. If you find a fix, fix away! :) by all means! :)

Thanks for understanding! m.

Wordofmouse wrote:

Just to be clear, we can keep the treasure we have if it isn't sinking the shop right, we don't have to dump it overboard to outrun the pirates?

i.e. If the code still works we are okay to keep using it?

because a lot of the display code IS still working, we might have to do the odd tweak but there are still many display option open for us.

Thank you times a million for advocating support.... and adopting my pirate ship story. ;)

Luck to you geniuses. please please keep creating, I love to get lost on your creations.

Wordofmouse wrote:

It would be a mammoth task to go back and purge old display coding but I don't think we need to .... the site works with what is already there and any new posts are governed by the new safeguards (to prevent pirates boarding the ship), hence we can't re-post vulnerable old code and if you edit you have to update to the safer methods...

but what is already there seems to be okay since the ship is still sailing and there now seem to be fewer pirates getting on board...... and presumably they'd have disabled all the pre-existing coding as well if it was causing a problem.

It's not after all the code itself as what it allows you to do that is the problem, we might have been deploying it in a benign fashion but the spammers were not.

I guess we just play it by ear and if we have to go change stuff, we go change stuff...

Your beautiful description of an ugly problem is much appreciated by those of us lacking in technical know-how. Thankyou Molly for helping to steer our ship through these treacherous waters and, perhaps more importantly, communicating to us humble travellers about what is going on:)

I'm right there with you guys Luna :D

Realistically I have an ounce more window-light on these matters this time around than I did before.... we are but a ball of glitter tucked in the back of the wardrobe... we will make our way to the front and kick open the doors - my hope ;)

I love analogy's. hah!

I'm looking at you leaders to keep us all on an even (as much as we can) keel. If part of us sets the ship on fire, we all burn and go down together. ;) lol that's how I look at it.

Luna Rosa wrote:

Your beautiful description of an ugly problem is much appreciated by those of us lacking in technical know-how. Thankyou Molly for helping to steer our ship through these treacherous waters and, perhaps more importantly, communicating to us humble travellers about what is going on:)

I agree with Luna Rosa. :-)

Thanks so much for your information and support, Molly! It's so helpful to have some idea of what's going on and what we can reasonably expect, and to have your blessings in trying to find solutions that will keep the site moving forward in creative ways.

I've been away for a little while Molly; so I hadn't realized you'd returned. It's so nice to see you again! :)

Thank you for all of your efforts here. It's a hard job to do with such limited resources, and I really appreciate you sharing your time and energy with the community.

All my best to you and yours!

Thank you, Molly, for communicating with us!

Thank you for all that you do, Molly, and for keeping everyone in the loop : )

You can count me in. I love this site too much to give it up. I have patience.

I disagree with the decision to block the spam if it means blocking Desvil's codes. Spam doesn't bother me nearly as much as not being able to use her JS tool. :(