Incorporate RSS or emailed proxy update support

[Guest Exiled]

There are free and pay services, like Xproxy.com, that offer RSS feeds and e-mail subscriptions to lists of fresh proxies, submitted by members, compiled from other lists, and tested by Xproxy (whose founder was a fed-up admin, but supports the use of proxies for privacy where they are allowed). This could certainly be a selling point for established boards considering an upgrade or software change. In today's web environment, most admins get sick of recurrent troublemakers when their board reaches a certain size.

I don't know how much glue logic would be required, but since there is at least the possibility that it might be readily done, I'd like to submit it for consideration. IPB has RSS support now, and an auto-updated proxy block would be a welcome adjunct to manual entry of known board-specific problem IPs.

Most proxies have a short life (hours or days) because they are trojaned PCs, misconfigured systems or blocked by ISPs, backbones, etc., Many casual users use these SAME lists to acquire the fresh proxies they need. Sure, there are private and zero-day proxies, and some ISPs aren't very helpful, but this would still be a quantum jump in capabilities. Many corporations and agencies with network admins use blocking lists.

Is it a perfect solution -- hardly. But I think it could be a very potent asset. Each troublesome poster who comes back through proxies can be a huge drain on the time and enthusiasm of every board admin.

Consider validation screening. If manual validation is enabled, an icon showing whether the IP was recently flagged as a proxy would be valuable. I'd hope you'd also consider an IP block posting, period (My board was born from the hacking of a fairly large international board, and has had an anti-proxy rule for years)

It's really a shame. Proxies have their uses -- but many boards are being burdened by those who abuse them, and posting to privately run boards isn't nearly the beneficial use (or "right") that access to the larger internet. After all, we have memberships, right? And ban capability? Anything that makes a a sometimes ineffective feature perform its intended function better is, I think, worth considering.

And who knows: with the right insight, it might even be easy!