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#1 2019-09-20 7:39 pm

BogusRed
Member
Registered: 2012-01-02
Posts: 4

Commercial vs non-commercial use question

Hello and thank you for providing this service! I used to use the API a long long time ago for my site but ended up removing it for some reason. Don't remember why.

Anyway the spammers are back in full force trying to spam profile pages, art, and forums and I'd like to use the API again to prevent spam.

I would like clarification about the license because the license says you're not allowed to use it if it's for commercial gain. My website now operates as a business (don't make a penny yet and probably wont for a couple years) but I currently offer paid features on my website that help to support the business.

I'm NOT reselling the software. I just have subscription based features available on my site/forum.

From reading these old threads looks like in the past you were ok with this sort of usage of the stopforumspam api but looks like these threads are super old and the license page is still unclear. so I just wanted to double check if it would be ok for me to use the stopforumspam api.
- https://www.stopforumspam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2288
- https://www.stopforumspam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=1417

Please let me know if you need additional information, I'm happy to provide.

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#2 2019-09-20 7:44 pm

BogusRed
Member
Registered: 2012-01-02
Posts: 4

Re: Commercial vs non-commercial use question

Just to clarify, the business does bring in some revenue but it costs more to operate than it currently brings in as it's still in the early stages of being a business.

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#3 2019-09-20 11:22 pm

Alex Kemp
Moderator
From: Nottingham, England
Registered: 2009-12-02
Posts: 2,420
Website

Re: Commercial vs non-commercial use question

It's a question of you reselling the service we provide (not allowed). No charge for the service, just do not abuse it (else you will get banned).

If you use a common plugin then it will be written to not abuse the service. If you write your own then you will need to consider aspects such as caching SFS responses, as to keep site hammer at a minimum.

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#4 2019-10-09 4:07 pm

BogusRed
Member
Registered: 2012-01-02
Posts: 4

Re: Commercial vs non-commercial use question

Thank you for the help. The php libs available are very old and not well maintained. i will look into writing something myself and open sourcing and adding tests if i can't find one.

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#5 2019-10-09 8:48 pm

Alex Kemp
Moderator
From: Nottingham, England
Registered: 2009-12-02
Posts: 2,420
Website

Re: Commercial vs non-commercial use question

If writing a utility to make use of the SFS API, the main aspect to consider is local caching to prevent undue hammer on SFS. Quick background on this aspect follows:-

In the early days of SFS many folks were using this site as a firewall. On *every* access to their site they would interrogate SFS to find details on the IP that accessed them or, if they offered a forum login, on both IP, email + username. That is pretty damn rude in itself, but try to imagine the effect on SFS when scaled up across 100 users all doing the same (in a nutshell, it stops SFS being able to operate). Or now try to imagine 100,000 users (the current daily number of users) abusing our service.

The above became so common that warnings ceased & folks simply went straight into the SFS firewall. It stopped being an issue for us at that point.

It is very easy to avoid this (and is also programming 101) - cache the values obtained from SFS for new users on first access, then obtain values from cache until the cache becomes stale. Use sensible values for the cache & you will never abuse our service.

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#6 2019-11-02 4:02 am

pedigree
uıɐbɐ ʎɐqǝ ɯoɹɟ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ɐ buıʎnq ɹǝʌǝu ɯ,ı
From: New Zealand
Registered: 2008-04-16
Posts: 7,054

Re: Commercial vs non-commercial use question

You can use the API and the site as long as you don't sell access to it as a service, or sell the data.

Everything else is fine.

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