I have come across a serious problem with the James D. Brausch Relusi Link Exchange Software.This software, aka the Relusi Resource Directory software, is comprised of a set of PHP scripts that you upload to your web site server. Underneath that is a "data" directory which holds the links as individual files, and two additional files - status summary files. One of these status files holds the moderated status (not reviewed, accepted, rejected) for each individual link file. The other file holds the confirmed status (confirmed, not confirmed) for each individual link file. (Confirmed status means that the link requester has provided a legitimate e-mail address, to which the software sends a message requiring the requester to respond to it so that the link will show in the directory when it is confirmed.)
The problem is either that the data directory is easily or inadvertently subject to hacking, or there are serious errors in the PHP script coding that leads to corruption of the moderated status and confirmed status files in the data directory.
I have no idea what, specifically, the problem(s) is/are. I have a couple of suspicions:
One is that there is perhaps a problem in the code for the feature that supposedly allows a submitter to delete and/or update his listing. Perhaps that screws up other listings and/or the status files.
The other is that spam submittals (submittals not in the proper format in each of the submittal form text boxes) may screw something up.
In any event, I have noticed several times that the status of link submittals I have previously accepted have mysteriously reverted to "not reviewed" status. And this is not just one or two submittals, but dozens. To fix it, I have had to download the summary files, edit them back to accepted and confirmed, then upload them again. This is faster than going through each submittal individually. I have had to do this several times.
Now, if instead, you just go through each link request to accept they still may not be confirmed status if the confirmation file was also corrupted.
Because of these problems, I started keeping a record of the last good post number, and its subject, so when I went into moderation, I could see what is happening.
This post is already too long, so, bottom line, just one example:
I have a Relusi directory that has 228 links confirmed and accepted, a couple of days ago. Today, 133 of those links had been reverted to "not reviewed". It turns out that the confirmed script was also, unbeknownst to me, corrupted. That directory now has only 97 confirmed and accepted links.
That really pisses me off. First, I have lost a lot of links, and second, my script to get rid of spam links now deletes good links, because of the corrupted data directory status files.
For some time, I thought Brausch had some good stuff. In actuality, none of his stuff that I have tried, with the possible exception of Artemis Pro has turned out to be worth a crap.
Update 2009-06-18. No longer using any of Brausch's crap, including Artemis.
