No more blank or duplicate email addresses allowed

[Mr Blunt]

I tried to help the Jelsoft customers.
Jelsoft deems it working as designed.
And (so far) Jelsoft apparently does NOT even plan to correct your forum's database for you.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/bugs35.php?do=view&bugid=1783

It would be extremely repetative for me to repeat everything I said in the bug thread, so can I kindly ask all you customers to read that bug thread and then come back here to voice your opinions on the subject.

Like I said in there ... I'm lucky that I have a small forum (and lucky I have a little coding ability) ... But I didn't start that bug thread "for me". You big boys are the ones who will (or already do) suffer from this design bug.

How many of you have blank email address fields for some users??

How many of you use "one catchall addy" like none@127.0.0.1 or none@mydomain.com or some other static "junk account" for these users??

How many of you get a ton of returned mail from subscriptions and settings that get triggered by addresses that are no longer valid??

Get used to that last one because that's only going to increase after this is all said and done!!!


I went to bat for you customers.
I struck out.
It's up to you guys now.
Time to voice your opinions!!!


Otherwise .... you large forums better start preparing now because as I pointed out at the start, it doesn't sound like Jelsoft is going to correct these addresses for you EVEN THOUGH 3.5.0 has already made this a madatory field which cannot support duplicates or blanks.

[TCM]

Duplicate email addresses are no longer allowed?

That's aburd. What about role playing sites where members use different accounts for different characters? It should remain an option.



Mind you, with your rant in the bug tracker, I'm not suprised the devs didn't care for what you had to say.

[sweet22]

dev's please just add this option it will appease many as not everyone is creating a forum network...

[Andreas]

I don't see a need for having multiple accounts on one eMail address.
In fact, I want my members to be unique.

> How many of you have blank email address fields for some users??
I have zero, as I require my members to put their email - not only for legal reasons.

> How many of you use "one catchall addy" like none@127.0.0.1 or none@mydomain.com or some other static "junk account" for these users??
I don't.

> How many of you get a ton of returned mail from subscriptions and settings that get triggered by addresses that are no longer valid??
I get tons of of returned eMails; users that bounce too often get their subscriptions and notifications disabled.

[Zonex]

Personally, I like using the same email more than once for test accounts or aliases I may use. I was not happy when I saw I could no longer save a user in the admincp when the email was already in use.

I presume from what the devs have said that they will be using email as a login across sites instead of forum names. If it's possible, for the 99% that wont be using this, let us put it back how it was with an option setting.

EDIT: Hmm, the "bug" shows closed/fixed now. Any words devs?

[Mr Blunt]

Test accounts is a great example.
Aliases and Role Playing are as well to be quite honest.
Simply to help rid the world of the need for junk accounts ... is my reason.

Many sites don't WANT strict accountability for their individual members.
Many sites are just happy that people come to visit in the first place!!!

What about all those fun sites where alter egos are what makes the forum so special?? Sites where they play "good cop - bad cop" to get points across to people. I've WATCHED conversations (threads) exist where it literally one guy who has 50 posts in 1 thread with 10 different nicks .... just to play devil's advocate with himself to show all sides of a story to everybody else.

Believe it or not, some administrators enjoy that for a wide variety of reasons .... mostly because the effects can be be very effective!!!

[Reeve of Shinra]

I allow my members to have aliases and keeping them to a single email account that works really helps.

[TCM]

Didn't there used to be an option for this? Yea?

Well, put it back!

[merk]

If you're worried about bouncing messages use tamarians vBouncer at vbulletin.org. No file hacks needed.

IMO - almost every forum on the internet requires email addresses. Just because you dont doesnt mean the core product should change, it could very well mean that you should change the core product to suit your needs.

[ChrisLM2001]

What about all those fun sites where alter egos are what makes the forum so special?? Sites where they play "good cop - bad cop" to get points across to people. I've WATCHED conversations (threads) exist where it literally one guy who has 50 posts in 1 thread with 10 different nicks .... just to play devil's advocate with himself to show all sides of a story to everybody else.

Believe it or not, some administrators enjoy that for a wide variety of reasons .... mostly because the effects can be be very effective!!!

Yep. Because nothing draws traffic more than a hot debate (look at this forum for a good example, too!).

Should see what can go on at tech forums when a hot new release comes out and it's buggy. Some threads can have thousands of posts on them -- and there's links to the juicy details all over the 'net.

If there's no way to have more than one email account (an admin should be able to have 1 or 1,000,000 s/he wants <-- sockpuppet central...lololol), how can admins test their forum features? In order for us to test registration features and all, we have to make sure it's possible to reuse a same email addy before even trying.

At least make sure the admin can have/use as many email accounts they need to develop their forum.

Man, we need a dev copy of vB b-a-d-l-y. If 90% of the vB customers don't mod/customize their forums, and the 10% is doing all of the grunt work, how about being KIND to the 10% who's doing the grunt work???? You offer the plugins but the templates are a joke, and work arounds won't work since things are hardcoded to prevent it. That 10% needs a blank slate to do their work, not work in strait jackets!

Chris

[conqsoft]

No e-mail address, no account on my site. Plus I have a list of several thousand free e-mail services that I block. Makes it too easy for troublemakers to join up, and continue to re-join when banned.

[ChrisLM2001]

There's a difference between letting the admin and staff have as many email addies (and if the forum was used for a business, they may well need more than one catchall address for inquiries), than the general membership.

Guess the complaint is the admin/staff need to have the ability to do what they need to do, and not just get tied to one email addy. They own/run the site, why strait jacket them with the same membership limitations? In this case the guy wants the ability to leave no email addresses for his members (which on some sites would be essential), and as an admin (and he's paying the tab for the forumware) he should have the option to require email addresses or not.

Chris

[merk]

Sounds to me to solve your complaints about having email address limits would be to run your own user in "restricted" mode to see what it looks like for specific usergroup combinations. (which is a much nicer feature than having many accounts).