I wanted to visit this for my own understanding. I have read every thread in Forum Information -> General Topics (I think I have anyway) back to 2011 and I can't seem to find a statement of your policy on this subject. Might be here and I missed it, and if so it wouldn't be the first time. LOL! I realize the importance of avoiding spam and such, and to some extent monitoring IP's can be an effective tool. I Admin and Mod at a couple of private sites so I have understanding of IP settings in the software as pertains to site Mgmt and staff visibility of the same. Would you please consider making an "official" comment as to how you are handling IP's in the background of this site, as well as your database backups? Specifically during log-ins and member postings made. In my case if you retained IP's, you would have many hundreds since I use TOR. I suspect I am not the only member here that would be interested in your answer.
We run a fairly popular, purchased forum software called XenForo. It has specific functions built-in which determine how and when IP addresses get logged. I think this post at the XenForo Forum itself best explains it: https://xenforo.com/community/threa...the-ip-address-is-recorded-for-members.97771/ So, all those actions have logged IP addresses here. However, they do not go back indefinitely. This is the current setting option for IP address retention: Database exports don't actually go back very far. Checking just now, the oldest export in the long term, "off the main server" backup server, is dated from: wsf_xenforo_db_20150101.sql.gz I used to save more (further back) than that, but, in all the years I've been running the forum, I've never found a use for multi-year old backups, so, I stopped saving them. Besides, they're not small and I need space on that server for other projects. I do a farily typical backup retention cycle. There are several backups from various days during the most recent one month period. Then one per month from the previous 6 months. Then one every other month, until you reach the oldest one, at about a year old.
LWM, Thank you for taking the time to clear that up. I enjoyed reading your link too! BTW - this forum software runs nicely.
It's obviously their call to defend Wilders as they see fit. And it's great that they're upfront about this. What's important is the lesson that you don't know whether sites log IP, and how long they retain logs. And so it's prudent to assume that your IP is always being logged, and that logs will be retained forever. If you don't want your ISP-assigned IP logged, you need to make sure that whatever setup you're using works reliably, and doesn't leak.
My personal view is that this type of forum IP logging is in general a good thing . There's more than one forum I used to follow where flame-wars and bannings were regular occurrences ( although not usually on the serious "techie" ones ). So-called " Banned" members could pop-up again with hilarious regularity , albeit under a new guise .... little realizing that their chosen targets , and their writing style would always give them away , sooner or later . But it was sometimes the ruin of an otherwise entertaining forum , and IP logging is a fairly good a deterrent . Anyway , " irregardless" of all that ..... I'm fine with Wilders policy as LowWaterMark has stated it above .
