Hitskin.com
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I come with this suggestion within about an hour or so after seeing a new user privacy feature has been implemented on my forum where parts of user's email addresses are now replaced with "xxxxx".
The suggestion is: to allow at least a week after registration were the administrator is allowed to see the full email address of the new user.
Over the past few days, my forum has been getting hit with a flood of new spam accounts (perhaps the worst in years). 16 new spam accounts created in just one day alone. Stopping these new accounts every few hours throughout the day (and waking up to a bunch of spam messages sent at ~4am in the morning). Shortly before coming on here to suggest this, I had to log in and ban one of those accounts that was just created and began to post more spam. Within the past few days, I've been able to stop nearly half of these new accounts before any spam posts could be made thanks to searching their email address on www.stopforumspam.com. The usernames they use are normally not useful alone as they are not always exactly the same as those listed on that site, while the email addresses are. I will not ban a new (0 post) account unless I have a match to the email address used.
Other than to stop spam, on occasion, I have a new user contact me through a contact page informing me that they did not receive the confirmation email when they joined, only to find that they transposed a character or is missing a character in their email address. Therefore, I'm able to explain the issue and fix it (rather than assume the confirmation email landed in their spam box or a technical issue occurred and it wasn't sent.) Thus, that member will be able to receive email notifications, request a new password if lost, etc.
I understand the constant push for more privacy of all users, however it will limit the ability of admins/founders to help users and combat spam accounts. Which is why I suggest allowing at least a short time frame when new user's email addresses are available to the administrator, or if only the founder's account.
The suggestion is: to allow at least a week after registration were the administrator is allowed to see the full email address of the new user.
Over the past few days, my forum has been getting hit with a flood of new spam accounts (perhaps the worst in years). 16 new spam accounts created in just one day alone. Stopping these new accounts every few hours throughout the day (and waking up to a bunch of spam messages sent at ~4am in the morning). Shortly before coming on here to suggest this, I had to log in and ban one of those accounts that was just created and began to post more spam. Within the past few days, I've been able to stop nearly half of these new accounts before any spam posts could be made thanks to searching their email address on www.stopforumspam.com. The usernames they use are normally not useful alone as they are not always exactly the same as those listed on that site, while the email addresses are. I will not ban a new (0 post) account unless I have a match to the email address used.
Other than to stop spam, on occasion, I have a new user contact me through a contact page informing me that they did not receive the confirmation email when they joined, only to find that they transposed a character or is missing a character in their email address. Therefore, I'm able to explain the issue and fix it (rather than assume the confirmation email landed in their spam box or a technical issue occurred and it wasn't sent.) Thus, that member will be able to receive email notifications, request a new password if lost, etc.
I understand the constant push for more privacy of all users, however it will limit the ability of admins/founders to help users and combat spam accounts. Which is why I suggest allowing at least a short time frame when new user's email addresses are available to the administrator, or if only the founder's account.
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