Does anyone remember

[tonicha]

Dippytrout from the old DM boards?

I've managed to track her down - 4 years later

Still as mad as a box of frogs ands still with the Kaptain and doing the sailing thingies. She broke her pelvis, varuous ribs and other bones, but is fine now

Sends her hellos xx

[meriad]

Sadly don't remember her, but if she's as mad as a box of frogs then she'd be a good fit here

[saundra]

Didn't she live in Turkey something to do with boats
Hi from me get well soon

[Diflower]

The name does vaguely ring a bell but I'd probably already left the DM boards by then.
You're welcome to send her an invite with a link if you think she might like to join us, but if you do then please send a pm to me or Loz (this week - otherwise Kaz or Gal too) with a username, otherwise she'll get zapped before she gets in

[Workingman]

You're welcome to send her an invite with a link if you think she might like to join us, but if you do then please send a pm to me or Loz (this week - otherwise Kaz or Gal too) with a username, otherwise she'll get zapped before she gets in

Erm, a polite question..... is that the reason the site has not grown? Are we turning away people who might like to join because we are making it too difficult?

[Lozzles]

We are happy to have new members WM, but not just anyone
We are a small but happy band here. If anyone recommends a new member we are more than happy to let them join.
We do have to check details though as we get an awful lot of spam type things every day that have to be dealt with

[Diflower]

I wish WM
Okay, here's the gen - I don't think it's meant to be any secret.

No. Unfortunately all sites are open to spammers, who load their computers to scan open sites and auto-submit membership details. You can try to slow them down with things like we have here, the 'captchka' (that's probably the wrong spelling), whereby you have to type in 'what's in the box' before you get past screening.
But the serious spammers bypass that and appear as 'latest member' all the time.

What happens is, we as mods are alerted by email every time someone joins the site. At that point they are automatically designated 'inactive members'. We (mods) then go to the long list of recent, new, Inactive Members, scroll down and look at the names, which are invariably gibberish (or obvious site names), and delete them.

If we didn't bother to delete them, nothing would happen, since we do have to 'activate' members before they can post. But it does lead to rather huge lists
If we instead 'activate' rather than delete, then every post, on every board, would be subject to the kind of posts we would all (I hope) really rather not see
Some of these auto-spammers are for gambling sites - bad but not awful - but a lot would lead to far more dubious websites and of course probably viruses etc.

As to turning people away, nice thought, but no, no-one would know we are here unless a current member passed on the site details. We would love to have more members, but in reality are reliant on present members recruiting new ones

[saundra]

it sounds very hush hush and selective on VV
well done mods for your effort

[Rodo]

Enormous membership lists of people who never post are just useless anyway. I think you are wise to be selective.

I have something at the back of my mind about Dippytrout. Wasn't there a Dippy Di, and was that the same person?

[tonicha]

No Rodo, definately Dippytrout.

Saundra is right, her husband is Turkish and they charter their boat for tourists.

She fell off a balcony or something, years ago and it took ages before she was okay again.

I don't know if she'd like to join us - I'll ask