Forum Suggestion

[Trevor]

First of all, I know this has already been posted. But the thread's closed and I've got something to say.

I've got 9 personal messages- all of which are from spammers. I get e-mailed daily. Yeah, I know I can shut off the e-mail notifications. Don't worry, I have. The thing is, I wonder if other members know how to.

I ran a vBulletin forum for over three years. I setup a system that stopped HUMANS, real HUMANS from spamming my forum. The system is very easy to setup and doesn't even involve captcha's... it's all common sense.

There's a promotion system in vBulletin. It's very useful for sorting new members and confirmed new members. My suggestion is to restrict PM access/anything else that can be spammed to vBulletin's registered members. Have all posts be approved, no PM's allowed, profile comments approved/turned off, etc.

Then, have a message notification at the top of the forums explaining that until they make a certain amount of confirmed posts (mine was 3), they will be restricted from blah blah and blah.

Your moderators can approve the members posts. Once you see that the member is not a spammer and actually is on the forums for a real reason, use the promotion system to promote the member to a confirmed member group that doesn't have restricted access. The promotion system runs by default once an hour so you won't even have to manually promote them. Just have your mods confirm the posts and bang, depending upon the time that you set, the member begins confirmed.

This will really cut down on the spam and probably will actually cut down on the members who post just to hate. Another suggestion is to not reveal the amount of posts needed to become confirmed. This is sometimes necessary because some members, at least my forum, figured it out and faked to be nice/real/etc. (computer spammers can't do that obviously) until they became confirmed.

Just my two cents. Hope this didn't come across meanly, I just am interested in helping WB stay clean and organized like it should.

[WB Matt]

The only problem that I see with this is the roadblock for the "furious current customer." Many of the people who find this forum do so because they have a problem with their WildBlue service that needs fixing. Sometimes this results in a service call where we adjust the pointing of the dish or fix a problem with the cabling, sometimes it means we send out a new modem, and sometimes it's a problem with customer's computer or home network. We work hard to get these problems fixed ASAP.

One of the things we agreed upon when we launched the forum back in the summer of 2008 was that we wouldn't edit the postings from angry customers with problems. The forum is set up to automatically edit out most profanity, but beyond that, we rarely edit posts except to remove personal detail for privacy.

If we lock down the forum so that first time posters must have their postings moderated, then we're putting another roadblock in the way -- which is especially irritating when you're angry with us already.

We know that forum spam has been a problem, especially recently. We're going to try to lock it down this week. If you have additional suggestions on how to do this, I'm all ears.

Thanks,
Matt

[Doug Huffman]

Kinda like a reverse IP ban, approve members only with WB IP.

[Trevor]

Oh, I totally understand that customers need to have access to the forums whenever and wherever and the whole approving them probably will cause some confusion.

Maybe if WildBlue customer accounts worked here as well to login with (sorta like a converge application), they would be pre-approved and could avoid the moderation queue.

Or, maybe have anyone who uses this forum and who's a customer use their WildBlue e-mail for this forum? It's a much less complicated way and you could put on the registration form something like "If you're a WildBlue customer, please use your WildBlue e-mail address." Then, upon registration, someone could confirm the member so they wouldn't have to go through the queues for approval as well. Or, you could even have a script made that any valid WB address is confirmed?

Just a few ideas. But these would maybe possibly avoid the troubles with customers and having them go through approvals?

[micwa]

I like that suggestion, members must use their WB email to register.

[inthewoods]

I like that suggestion, members must use their WB email to register.

So... what about the "WildBlue Pre-sales Questions" forum?

[Brush Creek]

So... what about the "WildBlue Pre-sales Questions" forum?

Let them wait.
Most beams are way oversold already.

[tlc2260]

let them wait.
Most beams are way oversold already.

lol.........

[Earthsignal]

"If you're a WildBlue customer, please use your WildBlue e-mail address." Then, upon registration, someone could confirm the member so they wouldn't have to go through the queues for approval as well. Or, you could even have a script made that any valid WB address is confirmed?

I like the idea but it is a bit more complicated than one would expect. Not all WB users get their service directly from WB and will have a wide variety of email addresses that don't have any indications that they are on WB satellite. Dish users, NRTC, are just a couple examples, this could be worked out but would take some though before putting it into place.

[wm4bama]

I like the idea but it is a bit more complicated than one would expect. Not all WB users get their service directly from WB and will have a wide variety of email addresses that don't have any indications that they are on WB satellite. Dish users, NRTC, are just a couple examples, this could be worked out but would take some though before putting it into place.

I agree, but instead of asking for a Wildblue type of email address do like other forums do to screen out spammers...require a valid email address from any ISP and after the person completes their sign-in information send an email to that address with a link that has to be used to validate the request for access to post messages in this forum.

That process is automated on many, many other forums...just sign in, request access to post on the forum and give a valid email address. The confirmation email is immediately sent out, and if the address is valid the applicant gets the email, clicks the validation link and is then authorized to post in the forum..