Access denied to Plusnet Community General Chat forum (and archive.ph)

[#1]

Helo.

1) I want to leave a message in Plusnet Community Gneral Chat but am denied access (see below). Does anyone know why this might be?

Cheeky I know but the question I was attempting to ask was:

2) Can anyone tell me if they can see this link: https://archive.ph
I ask as my access to it is denied if I am accessing it form the Plusnet network but not if I access it from any other. So I am wondering if Plusnet has blocked it.

Thanks for any help.
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Plusnet Community General Chat message: 

Access Denied

You do not have sufficient privileges for this resource or its parent to perform this action.

Click your browser's Back button to continue.

Return to my original page

[#2]

@ModelCitizen2 That 'access denied' message is a security feature - but your question will have been seen now. It would have been better placed in 'Everything Else' though.

[#3]

FWIW the page is accessible for me.

Therefore the first consideration is, are you using Plusnet's parental safeguard DNS?

[#4]

@Townman Good question, but I have a couple for you: This appears to be the users first post (although they signed up, apparently, in 2021) - could the changed access rights introduced when we had that spate of trolling/misbehaviour in General Chat in June/July 2020 have anything to do with it?

[#5]

Thanks Townman.

I don't use the parental control stuff.
Archive.ph is back for me now, in the end it was only unvailable for a few hours. I still don't know if it was due to Plusnet or Archive.ph blocking my IP (I do use it a lot to read news that's behind a paywall) but I could see it from other networks.

I am not blocked from the Community Chat forum section either now.

Do Plusnet staff read these forums? All I can think is that someone at Plusnet has sorted it.

[#6]

@ModelCitizen2 Archive.ph could have been having issues, although I had no problem accessing it (not on a PN connection, though)

The Community Chat board is locked to new users until they have made (I think) five posts elsewhere on the forum see my response to @Townman 

[#7]

Archive.ph was not down as I could reach it from other networks (I think I said this, if not I should have). The issue can only really have been that Plusnet could not see Archive.ph at that moment, or just my (static) IP could not.

As for Community Chat... yes maybe making the last two posts here gave me enough 'kudos' to be allowed into those forums.... but if it was a 'kudos' thing you'd think that Plusnet would provide a more relevant error message.

BTW. I've been a member of Plusnet almost since it first started.... in 2021 I changed to their business offering so that might account for the late join date, maybe.

[#8]

OK on the Archive.ph issue - but you can see it now, so whatever it was was due to a temporary issue.

As to the 'General Chat' issue, that is a restriction on that particular board introduced, as I said above, in 2020 due to a spate of trolls/bad behaviour on there, and as the forums are seperate from, but still hosted on, the PN site, it is your length of membership/activity on here which controls access to that board - which I think was clear enough in that message - you did not have access rights.

[#9]

@ModelCitizen2 

Telling people how to unlock the door, defeats the objective of having a lock.

Jumping in to general chat and just start posting is not a behaviour that in the past has been a great experience.  As @jab1 hints, it is a practical way of dissuading the trolls.

Personally I'd close the doors and throw away the keys to admitting anyone who does not have a Plusnet account ... as you might recall that is the way things used to be.

[#10]

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@Townman wrote:

Personally I'd close the doors and throw away the keys to admitting anyone who does not have a Plusnet account ... as you might recall that is the way things used to be.

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Yes, that would seem to be a better idea, certainly better than providing an uninformative and misleading error message.
I am surprised that anyone without a registered Plusnet account/profile can access the forums. I guess Plusnet must have a good reason for it though.

[#11]

In a well behaved world, such allows potential customers to come here and ask questions before signing-up.  In reality it is a suntrap for spammers and trolls.

[#12]

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@ModelCitizen2 wrote:

'
I am surprised that anyone without a registered Plusnet account/profile can access the forums. I guess Plusnet must have a good reason for it though.

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I think you will find a number of ISPs ( who have forums) allow non-subscribers to sign up to them, but may restrict posting rights. I know TalkTalk did/do and I understand BT  Retail do too. This, I understand was to enable them to ask questions if they were considering a connection via said companies, and wished to pick current subscribers brains. A reasonably good idea, IMHO.

EDIT @Townman types quicker than me/shorter replies. 😉