Registering and joining the auswine forum
Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 12:34 pm
Hello everyone
I'd like to post a bit of an update on joining and registering and using the auswine Forum.
Naturally I'd like as many people as possible and who are interested to join the auswine Forum and join in the community. Usually this is quite a simple and easy process, well at least it should be.
Unfortunately what's been happening now for some months, and shows no signs of letting up, is a rash of phoney user registrations. These happen each and every day, anything between 10 and 50 a day.
Most of these are done by things called bots, little pieces of software that
are written to go around and register on forums all around the world.
While we have nearly eliminated those people who post spam on the forum, thanks to lots of work by myself and other helpful moderators like RB and others, we are far from stopping, or even slowing down, these registrations.
The registration user names are an incredible mix, some are clearly and obviously phoney because they use names that are clearly false, but some don't, they use people's names.
The other complication is that some genuine people looking to register, choose really strange user names as well.
So each day I'm faced with a stream of user names which are a mix of the phoney, the likely, and the improbable, and have to make decisions about deleting them.
In this situation in inevitably I make mistakes. Every few days it seems I have inadvertently deleted a user who was genuine.
What we need is a solution to this problem, or ways for me to tell the real from the phoney. As such here are a few ideas and suggestions that I would value feedback on.
Ideally I would like everyone on the forum to use their real name, and to register as their real name. However I don't want to make this policy, firstly because I don't like instructing forum members what to do, and secondly because many long-standing members have user names that they like and they are we are used to.
Also some people don't want to use their real name because they're involved in the industry in some manner, and would find this a problem.
For these reasons, while I encourage you to use your real name, I don't want to make it mandatory. Some boards do, most noticeably the Robert Parker board, but hopefully we can avoid it here.
However there are a couple of things that I would like new registering people to do that will help us out, and be reasonably simple.
Try to make your username something that is clearly to do with wine or something related. In this scenario, it's very simple for me to tell that this person is a genuine name are looking to join the forum.
If you don't wish to do this, then there are two other things that will help me choose between real and phoney registrations.
the main things that show a phoney registrations are
They do not activate their membership
they post no details about themselves in their profile
they make no posts on the board at all
If you don't wish to use your real name, then to make the process of joining in simple, I would ask you to do the opposite of this. That is
activate your membership,
puts some details about yourself in your profile, (can be simple, where you are located, your interests, does not need to be personal information)
and if possible make a post to the board as soon as you can.
In this way when I am looking at the registrations I will see something about the user, notice that there are active and notice that they have posted and therefore leave them in.
It may seem a little fussy, but it is relatively simple, and will help us avoid this problem andmove with a smooth running forum.
I will leave this as a message at the top of the forum for a little while for new members to see, but also value any feedback about this?
I'd like to post a bit of an update on joining and registering and using the auswine Forum.
Naturally I'd like as many people as possible and who are interested to join the auswine Forum and join in the community. Usually this is quite a simple and easy process, well at least it should be.
Unfortunately what's been happening now for some months, and shows no signs of letting up, is a rash of phoney user registrations. These happen each and every day, anything between 10 and 50 a day.
Most of these are done by things called bots, little pieces of software that
are written to go around and register on forums all around the world.
While we have nearly eliminated those people who post spam on the forum, thanks to lots of work by myself and other helpful moderators like RB and others, we are far from stopping, or even slowing down, these registrations.
The registration user names are an incredible mix, some are clearly and obviously phoney because they use names that are clearly false, but some don't, they use people's names.
The other complication is that some genuine people looking to register, choose really strange user names as well.
So each day I'm faced with a stream of user names which are a mix of the phoney, the likely, and the improbable, and have to make decisions about deleting them.
In this situation in inevitably I make mistakes. Every few days it seems I have inadvertently deleted a user who was genuine.
What we need is a solution to this problem, or ways for me to tell the real from the phoney. As such here are a few ideas and suggestions that I would value feedback on.
Ideally I would like everyone on the forum to use their real name, and to register as their real name. However I don't want to make this policy, firstly because I don't like instructing forum members what to do, and secondly because many long-standing members have user names that they like and they are we are used to.
Also some people don't want to use their real name because they're involved in the industry in some manner, and would find this a problem.
For these reasons, while I encourage you to use your real name, I don't want to make it mandatory. Some boards do, most noticeably the Robert Parker board, but hopefully we can avoid it here.
However there are a couple of things that I would like new registering people to do that will help us out, and be reasonably simple.
Try to make your username something that is clearly to do with wine or something related. In this scenario, it's very simple for me to tell that this person is a genuine name are looking to join the forum.
If you don't wish to do this, then there are two other things that will help me choose between real and phoney registrations.
the main things that show a phoney registrations are
They do not activate their membership
they post no details about themselves in their profile
they make no posts on the board at all
If you don't wish to use your real name, then to make the process of joining in simple, I would ask you to do the opposite of this. That is
activate your membership,
puts some details about yourself in your profile, (can be simple, where you are located, your interests, does not need to be personal information)
and if possible make a post to the board as soon as you can.
In this way when I am looking at the registrations I will see something about the user, notice that there are active and notice that they have posted and therefore leave them in.
It may seem a little fussy, but it is relatively simple, and will help us avoid this problem andmove with a smooth running forum.
I will leave this as a message at the top of the forum for a little while for new members to see, but also value any feedback about this?
