note:: when I began writing this, I didn't intend to rant on so much, so ignore me if you can't be bothered reading so much. <3

Yeah, so, if it just so happens to occur on two of the boards I'm an admin on, it's either a HUGE coincidence, or it's me, or this is happening everywhere.

But, yeah, I've recently had on two different forums separate instances where a guest has appeared and all of a sudden the CBox is filled with spam. On one occasion it was complete and utter garbage (or just some foreign language, I'm not really sure which though, sorry. There were lots of e's and strange letters with extra lines one). And on the first forum it occured, the spam actually included the names of all the members who had recently posted on the cbox, but it was happening too quickly for it to be a person changing their name every five seconds, because there was only one guest online alongside myself. But the guest Cbox name changed to names (though I won't use actual names) and it was like this:

john: I HATE YOU ALL
joe: F*** U ADMINS
jane: I'M QUITTING

and 'john', 'joe' and 'jane' would all have been members, except this excessive spamming was constant and their names appeared more than once - my name even showed up, which made things completely unconvincing. But, yeah, I went straight to the Cbox CP and banned the IP, along with deleting the messages before anyone decidedly became offended by such profanities being used or believed that a fellow member was mocking them.

On the second forum the instance occured, I didn't know the username and password to the Cbox so I had to take it out of the side-bar and save the code in word until the root admin came online to take care of it.

I just checked and the two banned IP addresses didn't match, so it's obvious that there are some idiots who just enjoy messing with other peoples' forums so much that that's how they decide to spend their lives and not just one individual idiot.

So, yeah, I would've given you the IP, but it seems there's more than just the one that would need banning, so I shan't. I mainly posted this because I needed to tell someone, but I wasn't sure whether a thread already existed, so I'm sorry. I partially made this as a kind of warning to anyone who uses Cbox that if members suddenly all begin swearing or saying they're quitting in the Cbox, then it'd be best to go to your Cbox CP and ban the IP as soon as possible, because if a member was quitting they'd surely post a thread about it, not just use big capital letters in the chat box to make their announcement. And if you don't know the username or password but you can access the forum's admin control panel, just take out the code and save it in word.

edit:: by the way, I'm not sure if this happens in ShoutBoxes too, but I know for certain that it happens with CBox's.

It's one of the lowest forms of spam, and I feel your pain.

Generally it's some idiot kid trying to get a rise out of the admin, maybe someone who plays on another board - or perhaps just someone who thinks roleplaying is stupid and wants a dumb laugh. This is why IP's are admin's friend.

And also why I love the delete button in the ShoutMix... having to go back to the website and log in is annoying. *sigh*..

We actually had an ex-member do it to us once. It was hard to ban that IP, simply because he had actually been on the board for six months, and I hoped he would come around... I eventually got an apology, but it really did upset me. But the bottom line is, whether it's a random or a member doing it, you've got no choice but to ban. Randoms you don't have a care for, never knew them never will...

.. but members like that, you don't need.

I was never too fond of Shout Boxes, because persay someone like what you are describing to us now.. or a mean ex-member always go right after the next easy target! The Shout Box! Where they can spam the heck out of it, create drama.. It's just so ugh and very frustrating...

However I personally think.. to avoid this in the future, that you should set the shoutbox privately to where only members can view it and post in it!

I had to do that recently with mines because of a few hahaha ex-members wanting to take advangte of pissing me off. Needless to say it only got me to be more smart ! ^^ But IPs is a wonderful thing too! Because ooo you can just do one thing to keep those nasty spammers off there and that is to banned them.

However if you have Shoutmix your not able to do that.. I couldn't do it... but there is another shoutbox that DOES have that and I do admire.. But I more so like Shoutmix simply because its easy to manage... and you have a lot features, but then again I bought it so I could have these features XD Bah! I'm rambling!

But I do feel your pain.. just remember to get these IP addresses and ban them immedately! Also see about getting it to where its only viewable to the members!