Is it OK to "Paste as plain text" Ctrl+Shift+V

Andrea as you and MSE clearly ignore this part of the forum on a regular basis...why do you now expect our help?

Why is this? I'm genuinely puzzled, never having been asked to avoid this on any other forum, and not being able to find the answer online.

Isn't this just sheer bad practice by the MSE technical team?

It's a standard issue with pasting from Word into web forms. Word uses Internet Explorer formatting rules, so when you paste it into a web form it also copies the HTML formatting Word puts into it, forums with stricter validation and verification checks will pick these HTML codes up as you trying to insert code into the forum (basically, hacking it) and block your post, your IP address.

Andrea as you and MSE clearly ignore this part of the forum on a regular basis...why do you now expect our help?
I don't think they do really require your help/or are asking for it, they're simply saying if you paste from Word you might get an auto-ban. Don't say you weren't warned.

Isn't this just sheer bad practice by the MSE technical team?
Probably more likely bad practice from every other forum you use.
There are ways around it by coding the forum to strip out the standard WORD formatting before it submits your post but it wouldn't be that easy to do.

Paste as plain Text should fine as that will remove any formatting

Hi rainbowgirl84, sorry you feel this way.

As I'm sure you know the Forum is a HUGE, free, advert-less platform and we're a relatively small team that try to monitor, respond and uphold users' rights and content where we can, unfortunately we're not able to respond to everything.

This means we ask users like yourself for support on security and community awareness to help keep the forum a safe, friendly and useful place.

We're sorry it may feel like we're not listening, this certainly isn't our intention! Is there anything you feel we've missed that you feel strongly about?

How can we recover our up access as when I’m using my iPhone on the forum via my WiFi I have to turn to 4G to use it now as I get the banned message.

Tia

Hi DD1A, that's not good.

Can you PM me the IP address you get on your iphone please?

http://www.whatsmyip.org/

Thank you!

**before reading this post bear in mind this was over 2 years ago for me and i cannot remember, user Penitent below says that when he was blocked he could not even see the forum pages at all...that could also have been the case for me...I can't remember, I suggest below the method of communication with the admin team that I *might* have tried, but if I was truly blocked out I couldn't have done this. unless the "contact Us" appeared also on the Blocked log-in page**


This happened to me, I posted a wall of text from a document and I got banned. I had no recourse, I can't remember what the exact symptoms were but I think when trying to log in I got some screen saying this ISP is blocked with an FAQ but no clear instruction on what I could do if I wanted to contact the admin team....to ask why I had been blocked, and to "appeal the decision" so to speak.

I assumed it was because the forum computer thought my repeated attempts (I think 2 or 3 times) to try to get my wall of text into a post was some sort of malicious activity....it seems now that my assumption was correct.

I vaguely remember there was something I could do..... but it was not an option "If you wish to contact the Admin team to ask why you have been blocked click here". It was something else...possibly the "How to contact us" feature that appears on every page... (I have just clicked it now to remind me what is there) And again, I notice ...how I would feel if I was clicking on that if I was currently blocked, there are links to FAQs....so I went to those FAQs and I searched for ISP blocked and there is no search result...for that so I would still be in the dark. There is then a link at the bottom When you click on this you get an internal send message screen with your current username and registered email address. In my case the registered email address is now defunct and so *if* this is what I was faced with as the only way to contact the team, I would have had to ask you to send your reply to my other email address xxxx@xxxxx within my message ....I got no reply to my other email address so I remained blocked.


Anyway, shortly after that, my Virgin ISP router went offline as it was an old type - no longer supported, they gave me a new router after 1 or 2 months of having no internet access what so ever.

So my MSE ban lasted I don't know how long, weeks/months before my router went and then another 2 months waiting for a new router...

When I finally got a new router I had a new ISP No. and I was able to access MSE again.

So the point of my post is....Andrea,

1) Please put into the your OP on this thread how the user who is banned and by default cannot log in to the forum - so cannot make anyone aware they are "experiencing issues" as you put it in your OP. And they cannot PM you..... how they can get it resolved without being able to log in.

2) Please change the default forum page that a blocked ISP user sees when they try to log in to include clear instructions and a direct method of contact to try to resolve the issue. And to make sure this appears on the old style forum skin and the new style forum skin...I use the old style and I remember when I tried to log in and got the blocked message it was still in the old forum skin. So you have to make sure it appears on both styles. You need to do this because the blocked user may not know to come and read this forum and the stickys at the top.

3) You really should have a contact email address for the Admin team in the "Contact Us" section on this forum.


Oh and I just read this bit in there...
I don't know what this means, it could explain why you did not reply, but I fail to see why you would not reply just because someone does not put some random number into the message?
Where do I find the reference number?,
Where do I put it in the message...at the start, at the end, In the subject box..no wait there is no subject box!
I can now see a box for "ticket number" but I have no ticket number....remember I am blocked... I don't know what you mean by "ticket number"?
Where does one get a ticket number from?
Is it something that admin will assign after I send the message?
Is it for those who have sent a message already and are following it up?
Does "ticket number" actually refer to what the previous page called a "relevant reference number"?
If it means "relevant reference number" why does it say "ticket number"?

I repeat ...looking at it now ...looking in the FAQs I can't see any "reference numbers" given on any of the auto-replies.
There is no FAQ for "Why is my ISP blocked?" (it did not appear in search results) so even if there are some "reference numbers" in some obscure location that I have not found yet.... How would I get a relevant reference number for a question that does not appear in your FAQ section?


Put yourself in my shoes....hopefully you agree I am pointing out some serious failings in the way you have written your "contact us" section.

I'm surprised this issue hasn't been resolved by now, given that this was said in April 2017:

"We're working to address this but in the meantime can you please try not to do it."

This is a commercial website now, part of Moneysupermarket, and very profitable.

Isn't it about time issues like this are fixed, along with silly little issues such as not being able to use words like S!!!!horpe (which will appear with !!!! in the middle because of inadequate and outdated software)?

Sçunthorpe is the word, by the way, and you shouldn't have to use a cedilla to make it appear! This sort of issue was resolved by most of the rest of the internet years ago - time for MSE to drag itself into the modern world?

But you did not say why it is not a standard warning featured on most forums, the person you replied to was saying they had never seen such a warning on any other forum...and neither have I.

The post is clearly Andrea asking users to help out if they can. How can you say "Don't say you weren't warned." ? If this comment is directed only at user "Doc N" fair enough s/he has read the OP, but this comment cannot be applied to the whole MSE membership, because I was not told about this issue, I did not know until I came here today and happened to see the sticky -which also was written long after I was blocked- This serious issue AFAIK has not been communicated to the whole membership except for this random thread.

Really? You think that MSE's approach being different from every other forum Doc N and myself use means that every other forum on the internet uses bad practice?

Oh my, if only everything in life was easy.

Good to know, for this one single forum on the internet.

I wouldn't normally make a comment like this (because it is stupid to make the connection) but I'm going to say it all the same....
Your reply suggests to me that this is your private user account and you actually work for the MSE admin team.

Thank you so much to the forum team for getting me back on the forum, I had pasted something amusing copied from a Word document without thinking.
Not so amusing when my IP address was automatically barred without warning a week later.

A friend told me about this thread when I had mentioned it and I then got in touch with the forum team and here I am back again

Hi,
I have made the stoopid mistake the other night of copying and pasting from a word document whilst sharing recipes on the old style money saving board
Now my home IP address is banned by the administrator
Can someone please, please move me off the naughty step and get me reinstated from home?
I am sorry, lesson learned and I now know to copy to notepad then copy and paste into the forum when using a word doc etc.

Thanks

Hi Just want to say thanks to you lads n lassies for sorting things out and unblocking my IP.
SO good to be able to access from home again.
Thanks

me too - although obviously I only found this thread after the problem.

The link you provide (from your we've banned your IP) led me to a form which seems entirely unconnected with that problem. In which the drop down list of operating systems does not contain Windows 10 (been around for years) or MS Edge (been around for years) so you might want to look into that please. You might also want to look into that it wouldn't even let me submit the form alternately blanking out the O/S ar the browser version

Formally please take this request to unblock my IP as it seems a knee jerk reaction inconveniencing me because of your technical problems. This is the second instance to impact me where your implementation/configuration of your security solution problems has led to over reaction. Are you sure its fit for purpose??

Also note that for most people an IP ban doesn't actually stop access to the site (eg 4G, Hotspot, VPNs) so I am unclear what this reaction is meant to achieve

thank you
Mark (mark88man)

Hi Mark

Please email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com

We cannot offer support here.

Maybe, but there's an obvious problem, and isn't it about time that it was fixed?

The Moneysupermarket Group that owns MSE had a 2017 turnover of £329m and operating profits of £113m - surely it can afford a relatively small fix like this one, particularly in view of the problems it's causing for some members.