SMF Development > Feature Requests

2.x registration problems

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MrPhil:
If you put an email link or contact form in the forum, it will likely be swamped with spam. That was my whole point about only revealing an email address once the registrant has sent off the application to join (not spam proof, but greatly reducing it, as the random public won't see it unless it's deliberately leaked). The advantage of an email link (over a contact form) is that it can be quickly changed, should it be leaked out and start receiving spam.

The whole point of providing a contact for registration stage failures is that most forums don't provide any such contact capability, leaving applications to bother this forum. We need to integrate this contact method into the forum setup, so that forum owners can't overlook it. We need to make it as spam-proof as reasonably possible, so forum owners won't be afraid to enable it.


--- Quote ---Thank you for signing up with mynewforum.org. We look forward to your presence online.

Our administrator has to approve applications, so it may take up to 3 days for your application to be approved. Please be patient. If you have not heard back from us by then on the email address you provided (me@mymail.com), please drop us a note at signup@mynewforum.org with as much information as you can provide (ID chosen, email address, etc.) and we will look into it.

Since you will be receiving an email from us, there is a chance it could be misdirected into a spam, bulk, or junk email folder (or even, simply discarded). If necessary, please "whitelist" our email address: newmember@mynewforum.org so you will be sure of receiving it.

We suggest that you write down the above information, in case you need it, as it will not be repeated anywhere! And once again, thank you for signing up and we look forward to your participation on mynewforum.org.
--- End quote ---

Something like that, provided on the last page of the registration process. What's so complicated about it?

Arantor:
So don't put the raw email address, put a contact form in with a CAPTCHA/question/whatever. But if you make it so it just sends a PM, any possible damage is contained anyway.

The thing is, putting this extra method makes it waaaaaaay more fragile and likely to frustrate people who are having trouble, rather than putting in a method that they can use themselves without the admin having to do too much about it.

MrPhil:

--- Quote from: Arantor on July 03, 2012, 12:26:03 PM ---putting in a method that they can use themselves without the admin having to do too much about it.

--- End quote ---

?

That's exactly what I'm proposing. When you sign up, you're told about an email address you can use if things don't go smoothly. How much simpler can you get? What does the admin have to do with it (other than addressing the issues raised in the email)? I think you're reading far more complexity into this than there actually is. True, there's a little more setup than today, to give a contact email address and perhaps a length of time to wait before pressing the panic button, but the payback is happier members and less annoyance at SMF.

Arantor:
No, it's not. That's the point.

Under my proposal, the member who's having trouble can send a message directly to the admin. The admin would have to do nothing to set it up, it would be a base feature.

Under your proposal, the admin would have to set up an email address here for every forum they run, assuming they wanted to do such. It also means people have to go somewhere else to get support - and even then it still means they have to send a message to the admin and wait for the admin to do it.

End of the day, the same thing is still happening - a message is sent to the admin. Except under your proposal, the user has to go to a totally different site, to receive an email address that may or may not be provided, may or may not be up to date... and that's *better* than having a form they just fill in there and then?

Honestly, how is it possibly simpler in *any* way than to just have a contact form built into SMF that directs to a PM?

MrPhil:

--- Quote from: Arantor on July 03, 2012, 05:10:11 PM ---Except under your proposal, the user has to go to a totally different site, to receive an email address that may or may not be provided, may or may not be up to date... and that's *better* than having a form they just fill in there and then?

--- End quote ---

No, you didn't read my proposal carefully, and jumped to conclusions. Under my proposal, the user receives a valid email address as an emergency contact, as the last stage of signup. They should use it only if something goes wrong with the registration process. It's part of the site registration -- not on another site. They are reminded to write down the information in case they need it. If the forum owner deliberately chose not to provide such an emergency address, the user won't see the message (it will be just as things are today). I suggest an email address rather than a form for two reasons: 1) it's easily changeable if spam starts arriving (leaving the forum owner less fearful of providing such an address), and 2) a contact form on the site would be publicly exposed to spammers (the annoyance factor would be high enough that I think most owners would shut off the form after a while).

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