2017-11-21 11:17:37 (edited by musicalman 2017-11-21 11:20:51)

Hi,
While this isn't a major annoyance at present, I was wondering about some thoughts on restricted accounts. In particular, people who have not posted once and who are thus restricted can still message any user they wish. I can see two sides to allowing restricted accounts to message users. Since messaging is not related, in principal anyway, to the public forum, it would make sense to treat messages as such and not worry as much about them. On the other hand, I've gotten at least three spam messages in the past few months. It's not a big deal, but if the infestation gets as bad as it once was on the forums, then we could have a problem.

Perhaps, a system could be put in place so that any messages sent by restricted users would have to pass through mandatory moderation. Presumably if you made an account you'd want it unrestricted, so having your messages moderated before being sent would be even more incentive to introduce yourself properly and thus get unrestricted access. If I understand correctly a moderator can read any user's messages whenever they choose anyway. So having restricted users moderated until they are proven as legit sounds reasonable to me. And also we'd have the added benefit of finding spammers before they even post, if they decide to send messages first instead.

Finally if I see messages coming in and the post count for the sender is 0, should I try to report them somehow, and how should I do it? In my experience if you delete a post, the number of posts in the profile doesn't go down. So, I would assume that the post count shown in their profile is accurate of how many times they posted, regardless of if those posts are still on the forum or not. In the case of one particular user who has just sent me a spammy message but who seems to have made 0 posts, what should I do?

What are your thoughts?

Make more of less, that way you won't make less of more!
If you like what you're reading, please give a thumbs-up.

2017-11-21 14:53:09

Oddly enough, there are very few user options and permissions attached to private message functions, so we couldn't moderate private  before sending even if we wanted to without some code rewrites or changes to the private messages function.

I'd also be loathed to disable restricted users pm function even if we could,  restricted users do need the ability to consult the mods or admins if there is a problem or something they aren't sure about (this has already happened).

I am not sure why your getting messages from restricted users, I've not seen this, how bad is this problem? Do we need to look into some other forum software or the like?

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-11-21 15:18:20

Hi Dark,
No need to make radical software changes, I don't think it's that serious. This is the first time I've actually encountered this and was able to verify the account was restricted. I've gotten spam messages recently before, but always deleted them on sight because I was only recently made aware of the new introductions and restricted users system. The only reason I came to the idea I posted here was because I thought message moderation was possible, and could primarily be used for restricted users. Obviously if such a user messages an admin or a mod, that could go straight through. As I said though, it's not a major issue and I've not yet heard of others who are getting messages from these users. Maybe i'm just a sitting target or something. smile

Make more of less, that way you won't make less of more!
If you like what you're reading, please give a thumbs-up.

2017-11-21 17:02:16

I will admit in all my time on this board with many spambot infestations, I haven't  any pms from spambots, so it is a rare occurrence.
Unfortunately, the pm extention we have on this forum isn't too sophisticated, though installing a new one waits on Richard and Sander, ( like many people, I'd still like to see one that gives notifications upon reciet of new messages), one reason why i'm wondering how wide spread this problem is and whether I have just been lucky so far.

I will say restricted users cannot use the forum email system, so that is one way spam messages are prevented.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-11-24 09:59:47

Got two spammy messages this week. One from kapednub yesterday about beauty discounts, and one from JulieTaili on Monday about XEvil 4.0 breaks CAPTCHA of Google, Facebook, Yandex, VKontakte, and 8400 others! Neither account has posted on the forum yet.

Make more of less, that way you won't make less of more!
If you like what you're reading, please give a thumbs-up.