Urgent - PLEASE READ - text editor security issues!

[Herself]

Hi,

I run a large network (www.fairiesvampires.com), with about 45,000 members.

 

I've just seen the new text editor, and I'm in a real panic about this, I'm absolutely horrified.

 

The problem is, my network, which is lively at the best of times, has been the target of several trolling attacks, whereby people sign up specifically to post 'shock' images to the forum, such as porn, violent, bloody murder images, even cartoons of child porn.

 

The average age of the users on my site is probably 14-15 years old, and most are Twilight fans, hence the reason the site is targeted by trolls.

 

For two years now, I've had a piece of custom javascript in place to SWITCH OFF the text editor bar, and to prevent users from posting HTML to the forum by stripping it out prior to form submission.

 

TWO YEARS ago I requested that ning urgently add a feature to SWITCH OFF HTML posting at the server-side, to prevent this kind of horrible misuse of the text editor. Ning have never implemented this feature, leaving me at the mercy of a piece of javascript.

 

The upgrade to the text editor has not only broken both pieces of javascript, it's been written in such a way as to prevent me from switching off or tinkering with this feature at all!

 

You have no idea how stressed I am about this - I had to have a laptop including irreplaceable software installs destroyed by the police two years ago when someone posted actual CP to my network. £1,500 of my money down the drain. I only kept the network running after that in the hopes of earning back some of what I lost. And Ning were completely unhelpful and litigious.

 

This latest change means that my network is totally insecure and my kids are at risk of being exposed to goodness knows what - I dread to think.

 

PLEASE PLEASE give me the ability to remove the text editor from my site, I'm begging you. If this isn't fixed, I'm potentially going to have to switch off my forum, which means, in reality, I simply can't keep running my network with Ning as I will no longer earn money from it. It isn't worth it for the trauma that I would have to go through if someone posted CP there.

 

PLEASE FIX THIS, it's SUCH an easy thing to fix server-side (I know, I'm a programmer, it would take one person a couple of hours to write and test!), and do it quickly before the holiday season starts and the trolls come out to play, I'm absolutely sick with worry. I don't want to spend my Christmas dealing with this kind of mess.

 

[Writer Chick {Diane}]

My goodness, why aren't you moderating new members??  I run a Twilight fan fiction site and I understand completely about trolls and "haters".  They're out there and their number one joy in life is trashing our sites and demeaning our love of all things Twilight.  It's for this reason that I moderate my new members very carefully.  I've had no trouble like you speak of.

[Herself]

I AM moderating new members! That doesn't stop a determined troll.

[Herself]

[Kemi]

Can't you moderate the pics and member postings to be approved before posting? Although I understand that's time consuming and kills the freedom of members to add content to the site.

[Herself]

1. There is no ability to moderate forum posts before they appear.

2. I have a 45,000 member site. It's extraordinarily active. People post new stuff every minute. Literally. It isn't humanly possible for me to read all of the content that's there, let alone approve it before it appears. I rely on my members to report issues to me, and thus far, because members haven't been able to post HTML, the forum has run smoothly with a couple of moderators.

 

I earn about £4 per day from the advertising on www.fairiesvampires.com. This kind of stress is NOT worth my while.

[Kemi]

I understand ; ( and hope a solution can be found.

[Herself]

With a simple piece of javascript that they haven't yet managed to break. See my source code.

[Patrick Chappelle]

If I hit the lottery, I'll give you all of the money so you can build a stronger, better, faster social networking platform... Or buy this one.

[Herself]

Thanks Thunder. I don't think I can take much more of this unilateral decision making. This is pretty much the last straw for me. If it doesn't get fixed properly, I'm going to get something in place to allow me to leave.

 

Ning don't seem to have a clue what it's like to be a network creator. I could download a free PHP bulletin board, and even that would have something as BASIC and no-brained as being able to switch off HTML server side.

[Herself]

Thanks JP, unfortunately the way they've written it, it can't be switched off with my existing code. I will certainly check out TJ's site. I hope I can create a temporary work around with something else, but Ning need to fix this properly. I'm too worn down by them to fight with them anymore, if they don't sort it out, I'm gone, and so is any other large network that cares about what content gets posted on their site.

 

It's almost 3am in the morning here. I could do without this. I'm going to have to spend tomorrow trying to fix it. I don't need Ning generating more work for me, I have enough things of my own I need to do.

[Herself]

Huh? Which other part?

 

I have an external javascript file linked to in the custom code box that *was* working fine with the old text editor.

 

The new text editor is created in a completely different way that makes it practically impossible to remove. I have no idea where to start.

[Herself]

Hi JP,

 

Thanks for the try but I can't get that (or a number of other attempts) to work in either IE or Chrome. The problem is that the code for the new text editor seems to wrap around the textarea at runtime, so any css that hides the text editor also hides the textarea itself.

 

I can't figure out how this darn thing works, when I take a look in the Chrome code inspector, there are Iframes and all kinds of stuff in it.

 

And of course the second issue is that my JQuery HTML stripping code is also broken by the text editor.

 

Currently completely at the mercy of Ning. :(