Public email addresses disabled.

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If you don't understand the post here then basically I just made it impossible for you to get spam as a result of your membership here. I hate spam and don't want anyone here getting spam by accident.
I just disabled the option to make your email address public for the following reasons.

You can always send a private message to a member of this site. You don't need to send them an email.

And more importantly:

Spammers often use spam bots to gather email addresses from forums. This is why you sometimes see someone posting their email address in this format:

Quote:

myusername at hotmail dot com

Quote:

[email protected]

That way humans get it but bots don't.

To use this site you need a valid email address however (to have lost passwords sent to you etc), so if public email addresses were allowed the spam bots would pick them up. So I have disabled this option so as to avoid any member of this site broadcasting their email address to spammers. I don't mind if you like spam but i don't want you to set your email adress to public and then blame us when spam shows up, so now it's just plain impossible for you to do that.

If you really insist that you want your email public and don't mind the spam that is sure to come I can make it public for you (just don't you complain to me if a spammer adds you to their list). But since we have PMs I don't want people who are unaware of how spam works getting spammed due to their email address being public on this site.

If you post your email in a topic you will likely have your email added to spam lists (if you post your email on the net spammers are very likely to find it. Assuming the page you post it on is well known). If you want to share your email address without running the risk of a spam bot finding it you should PM your email address to whomever you wish to share it with.

This is a pretty fool proof setup against spam but I might tweak this even more to make it even more secure (though I don't really think that is possible).

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Craven- I don't

understand exactly what you did, but it sounds good! Very Happy

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To make it clearer I

just removed the option to make your email address public. If someone doesn't know about spambots they might not know what

they are getting into.

This is in addition to making all profiles and the member and usergroup lists available only

for registered members.

If people whine too much about not being able to make their email address public I have some

other solutions up my sleeve to combat spammers but I think they won't mind as long as they can still send private messages

to each other.

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Craven and Phoenix:

For the reasons you described, Craven, when I filled out my profile page here I just typed in "emailme" and I figured that

they would have to be creative in finding an address. Fortunately, if someone really wants to reach me, I have a number of

addresses, sites and blogs that I will be found, lol!

I did not put my Yahoo Id or my Messenger Id in for the same

reasons. However, I like the idea of having the icons for all those IM services appear to indicate you HAVE the IM services

and may be interested in using them with posters here in this forum.

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Cobalt,

You

might want to change that to: PM me. That way they can talk to you privately without ever knowing your email address (unless

you give it out).

As to the icons, I will change the functionality of them so that some of them launch certain

features (like add member to your list or start a chat) automatically. Because of that it might get confusing if you don't

put real info there (they will be prompted to talk to a nonexistent person on yahoo the way you have done it now).

One

option for that is to simply put a note that you have those IMs in your signature or in your profile and tell them to PM you

for more info.

Just suggestions, I won't ever tell people how to work their privacy issues.

The IM features

are not nearly done yet but I'll announce something if they are modified.

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This is confusing.
Are you talking about registering, or giving your email out
in posts?
Or in your profile?

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Basically what I'm saying is that I disabled the option to make your email public in your profile. I can't stop you from posting it in the forums but I don't recommend it. That's (putting your email address online) a surefire way to get spam.

If you do post it online I suggest you do it like this:

myname AT hotmail DOT com

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This them makes it impossible for other members to get your email unless you give it to them, Right?!!

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Yes, that's the idea. But other members aren't the main concern. The main concern is the spydering with email harvesters.

Spammers use programs to surf the net and collect email addresses.

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i worry about a young man who says things like :

Quote:

But since we have PMs

. He's been spending far too much time with, ahem, mature women! Laughing

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Hey Cravan, Now help me with this one.

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I dunno what you are talking about, lest it's what beth said and I'm pretending I didn't see her post cause I'm not sure I get what she means. I'm sure it's something that I know but it's just not clicking!

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When I want to go around and look for something specific, I find it hard to find out exactly where I should be looking.

What I'm saying is that with so many people posting, The subject of the post is not always related to the topic anymore and you waste time searching.

Is there a way to name the subjects of our posts more carefully as to help with nav????

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There is a search function.

And eventually I'll get around to finishing the control panel and there you will be able to find more options.

But if you try the different links at the top of this page you will see that some might help you (like the view topics you have posted in link).

As to keeeping up with the whole board that will soon be impossible. ;-) You simply won't have time to read it all.

BTW for forum help please use the forum help board.

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What you have DONE craven, is most admirably
well done! Zero spam! Zero pop up ads! This is
very very good indeed. Is there anything that you
have NOT thought of yet? You are MY HERO!! For
you understand the insides of a thing that I only
understand the outsides of. Verrry important
in life for ME to know people who know things which
I lack, and vice versa. I believe it's a very good idea.

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I paid attention that there are no banners and no pop-ups on this particular site. It is extremely nice (many thanks!), but what does the site earn money for maintaining its existence from?

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Go to the Home Page, steissd; there's a link to Amazon. Eventually, there will be more such links.

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Eventually thee will be banners to support the cost of the bandwidth. I strongly doubt there will ever be popup ads though.

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Thanks for the banning-public-emails-in-profiles move, and the explanation about the spammers methods.

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OK, thanks for the banner warning; I shall install the antibanner software. I hope, this will not affect your revenues, Mr. de Kere (I really do not know how do the banners help to make money, but I hope that my refusal to receive these will not affect your finances).

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Public email addresses disabled.

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