How To Keep a Web Site Local? 297
Cornwallis writes "The universal accessibility of the Internet is one of its attractions. But what do you do when you don't want your board to be Slashdotted? Back in the day it was great to run a local BBS where friends and neighbors could dial in using their 9600-baud modems to pick up mail or share games or stories. Now, my Web-based board gets slammed by people from all over the world who have no reason to access it, can't possibly take advantage of the locally focused services it offers, and generally take up my time because I have to block their accounts or explain to them why they can't have access. This despite the fact that the board explains quite clearly that it is for local use only and couldn't possibly be of interest to them. Other than putting thousands of entries in my hosts file to block IP ranges, what options do I have to restrict access to locals only? Or isn't that feasible?"
MaxMind + PHP? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why use a tech solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Moot? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd put good money on this being 4chan
local knowedge (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple of years ago we started to get a lot of people signing up from China, India, Russia etc and then posting spam. So now, to register with the forum you have to answer a question that requires you have some local knowledge. That gets rid of most automatic signups. And secondly, the accounts are not activated automatically but have to be approved by an administrator. So we delete those with spammy URLs in their signatures ("Buy WOW gold" seems to be a common variety). In a small community, the number of real local people siging up is a few per week. Maybe a couple of spammers get past that in a month, and then their posts and accounts are quickly deleted.
Re:Easier option (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easier option (Score:5, Insightful)
Best to only apply this restriction to account creation. Requiring them to be local when they make the account is entirely understandable, but blocking them from logging in while traveling is not.
Re:Why use a tech solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a pretty serious problem for filtering based on geography.
No kidding. Basically, anyone who thinks geography-based filtering is a good idea should be shot. Imagine moving 2000 miles, then being told by some braindead webdesigner you can't talk to your friends anymore.
People travel. (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't expect that your users stay in one place.
Do expect that they sometimes travel to other countries.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And it sounds like you've never had to pay for things like bandwidth and server space out of your own pocket. Maybe he wants to keep it small because that's what he can afford. Information may want to be free, but the infrastructure to host it never is.
Re:Why you gotta be like that? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you put a website on internet, then want to restrict its geographical zone of use, you are doing something wrong. You can make a community group by selecting the individuals but that is about it.
Re:.htaccess (Score:4, Insightful)
And then brace yourself, because you're going to get an earful from the next local person who tries to catch up with her friends back home while she's on holiday, only to be told that she's banned because she's "not local".
Re:People travel. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even Americans travel. Suppose his website's in Florida: he presumably wouldn't want Alaskans using it, because they're even further from being "local" than many foreigners. So any regional blocking would be at the state level, or possibly even the city level. And that means travellers wouldn't have to be abroad to be inconvenienced.
Referrals Only (Score:3, Insightful)
Set-up account registration such that you can only get an account if you were referred by an existing user. You know, since you already have a good sized user base (you do, yes?). It isn't unreasonable as long as you're keeping things local. Most people should know one another, or know someone who knows someone.
But, honestly, why are you even explaining yourself to these people. An email solely with RTFM in it with a link to the page the explains what the site is about is more than enough. Seriously, stop feeding the help vampires.
Google Invitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Use an invitation system like Google did for GMail. Each existing user would have a dozen or so invites. They enter the recipient's email address in a form on your site, and it sends a welcome email with an invite code. Those codes could only be used one time each. Locally you could spread invite codes far and wide on your hardcopy flyers, business cards, etc, with another set of codes that allowed multiple use - say 500-1000 uses per code. When that bulk code starts running low, create a new code and post new flyers. Eventually you'll get the local saturation you desire, and those public codes could be reduced so they can only be used 50-100 times before expiring. The idea is if they get into the hands of a spambot there will only be a limited number of accounts they can create.
When a public code runs out, your website can say something like "This code has expired. You will find the latest code posted at the community bulletin board at the local post office."
Basically your advertising will be word of mouth (where the invite codes come in), or via local hardcopy posters, flyers and business cards (bulk codes). I believe the invite system would serve as a form of viral advertising in and of itself (which is probably a major reason why Google went that route).
Anyway, that's how I'd do it.
Be carefull with GeoIP stuff (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember, locals come from all over the world. Can you think of a time when you need local news more then when you are away from home? Just keeping out visitors because some geolocation outfit made some guess about their IP range is gonna hurt a lot of innocent people. And does IP based geolocation even work with mobile phones? If you considder your forum delicate and in need of easy access for locals then frustrating even some of them some of the time will hurt.
If its a forum you can decide to give *more* access to the kind of locals you want, instead of trying to give less to the visitors you dont like. I would try having online trivia quizzes about local events. Then you can give those who score well and have historically contributed interesting post moderating powers.
You can also demand referrals from current members at signup. Kinda like google did when it started gmail. I like the idea of plastering private keys around the neighborhood. Maybe you could use business cards, each with a different unique number and good for one account. If people know someone in the area a unique number will make their way, but if they dont then they are out of luck. Even back in the BBS days some boards were hard to get in. I remember typing up and "application" for access to a board, and then being voted into the community by a couple of regulars. Voting out people who figured "I hav l0adz of pr0n to tr4de" would get them in was kinda fun.
If its just bandwidth thats the problem then I would really considder just paying for the bandwidth someway. Maybe small local businesses would like to advertise cheaply but think adwords ads are for people with a website rather than brick and mortar store? Maybe you can serve more intrusive ads to those without a local IP? Or... just find a way to pay for the extra bandwidth! Bandwidth can be so insanely cheap these days
Re:People travel. (Score:4, Insightful)
I was going to suggest this, then realized his users are likely to be Americans. The funny thing is, that this is true of all large countrys citizens that do not live near a border. For example, how many ppl in France, German, or even England go into Africa? Or America? Or Australia? All of the Michigan , Wisconson, Minnesota folks I know HAVE been into Canada. Likewise, all the West Texas, NM, Southern CO, AZ, Southern Nevada, Southern CA ppl that I know have also hit Mexico. The ppl that have never been out of the country tend to be those in the middle. Of course, they have all traveled more than 1000KM away. And the simple fact is, that for us Coloradoans, we see major cultural differences . The difference between a West Canadian vs East Candian has about the same difference; Love their country, but different mind sets.
What is funny, is that it get the average EU person to travel similar differences would mean that they travel from Western europe into just east of middle Africa, or that they go into the middle east, OR that they go into central africa. How many do that? Damn few. And South Americans do even less traveling.
Re:.htaccess (Score:1, Insightful)
Or, more likely, he doesn't want to pay for bandwidth and cpu usage for people who have nothing to do with what his server offers.
The big problem, however, with restriction-by-location is that users who are away from home but still want to check the board are going to be restricted.
Re:Information wants to be free (Score:3, Insightful)
And you seem to be one of those that doesn't understand what "Information wants to be free" means, and how the question in the article actually shows one of the ideas behind that sentence.
The meaning with "Information wants to be free" is that it is very very difficult to contain information. You can't stop it from spreading, even if you would like to. It doesn't matter if you don't want it to be free or open, it will spread anyway.
Blocking some people from a website is also bound to fail, maybe not for the same reason, but for similar reasons, information will flow around blocks, as longs as someone wants to access it.
Re:.htaccess (Score:3, Insightful)