modified

This is mostly for Allan Haggett, but any feedback/ideas are welcome.

phpBB3 user profiles can be modified with fields for real names and so on. It looks like you've already messed with this a bit to add the 'footbag.org address' field. Setting up a similar field for real names would look more appropriate than having users put it in their signatures. While looking up this sort of thing on Google I also found an interesting article detailing how administrators can use the Custom Profile Fields function in the ACP as an anti-spam measure. The article is over a year old, and by now many spambots might be smart enough to get by this filter, but maybe combined with a good captcha it'll do the trick.

In any case I think it's a good idea to encourage people to have their real names in their profiles -- I will personally find it more useful than knowing everyone's footbag.org address -- and having an official field in which to do so would be cool.

Thanks in advance for all of the hours you've been putting into improving this community!

Thanks Reilley

Yeah, I messed about a bit with the the profile fields, though the @footbag.org field needs some tweaking and I might just remove it all together. The real name field idea is a good one, and I'll implement that soon. I've always thought that the real names in signatures was a pretty weird hack (though better than nothing I suppose). The question for the community is whether or not to make the "real name" field a required field upon registration. Honestly, I'm really not sure where I stand on the "nym wars." I tend to side with the "real names are important" group, but the other side has legit points.

As for the spam prevention, I read that article right after the upgrade when there was an influx of spam, but I actually don't think it's entirely necessary at this point, since the captcha I implemented (Q&A, instead of the default GD) seems to be doing the job quite nicely. Since I implemented that, there have only been two users try to sign up. The first one didn't reply to my personal verification email (though that doesn't necessarily mean it was spam), and the other one ("Wing") was legit! I'm almost impressed enough to turn off admin verification of new users (especially since I really don't want that job anyhow). If spammers start becoming a problem again, I'll revisit that article and see if I can't implement the profile field hack ...

I gotta go. I'll respond to your other post about the themes a bit later on today.

A

Allan, I noticed you updated the profiles fields to include real names (hint hint, everyone). Thanks! Is there a way you could make that show up by users' locations and forum titles so we don't have to navigate to their profiles to find out who they are?

Example below:

I'm just going to bring this up, but I think with the new updates to the site, I can't even see people's "Real Name" section off to the side, and I think it would be a good idea to include it in the signature (as I see that a lot of people already do). I think it would perhaps be a good idea to somehow mention it site-wide for people whose names don't appear anymore.
I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but I enjoy knowing who's talking.

bluevampire101 wrote:I'm just going to bring this up, but I think with the new updates to the site, I can't even see people's "Real Name" section off to the side,

There were about a dozen people that actually used this feature that I could see. So I removed it. I could put it back, but I'm not even sure that I agree that it's a good thing any more. Snowden blah blah blah ...