IMHO, an additonal ignore link such that if I put someone on the ignore list, all usernames from that IP address are automatically also ignored, would be useful. In addition, though harder (I think,) I would like an ignore link for all those users who do not have a static IP address (this may not work - it may be too strong - probably just AOL would do.) Finally, anyone that gets put on a user's ignore list should in addition be automatically be put on the ignore in the chatroom for the corresponding user. There are four or five users that keep logging on and creating different user names that continue to make this community at best like sharing a jail with a bunch of stupid criminals. I know that Baron now requires real e-mail addresses, but that can easily be foiled by someone that runs their own mailserver and is a registrar. Implementing the above would automatically make these users instantly go away. BTW, what is condisered a "real" e-mail address? nitro
I'm not sure how that would work. Since most people have dynamic IP addresses, you could be ignoring Bill, Jane, and Sue one day, and then the following day you could be blocking three totally different users because those users now have the IPs that Bill, Jane, and Sue had yesterday, or last week, or whatever. When a user submits a request for a web page, they also send their IP address as well. However, there is no process that is able to determine whether that user's IP address is static or dynamic. I wish! The chat software and the message board software use two completely different methods of storing and accessing the ignore list. In other words, they are not designed to share info with each other at all. The fact that you don't have to register for the chat and the message board separately is a miracle in itself. I had to hack that feature in myself. I'll look into this ignore list stuff a little closer though, but I can't guarantee anything. A real email address is the one given to you by your ISP.
Baron, I am not sure how this would work either. The one time I had a DSL with Dynamic IP (Ameritech), I would check my IP on a daily basis to see what my address was. I would say that for 90% of the six months that I had it, my IP was the same from day to day. However, I cannot conclude that this is the way it works for everyone, or even if Ameritech continues with that policy. Also, I have not had dialup in so long I do not know what they do anymore either... I know of a way that it would work, but it is really ugly. First, the following analysis _excludes_ AOL, since even from time slice to time slice, AOL users appear to come from different IP's (I would just like a feature to ignore ALL AOL, and then selectively allow me to un-ignore those that I want to see. But the default there should be IGNORE ALL AOL.) Since the idea is to ignore more than one user masquerading under different handles, the system could simply keep track of more than one user that keeps coming from the same IP. If the number of users that come from that IP is greater than 10, and those users are overwhelmingly on most people's ignore list, it is a good bet that "guy" should be flagged (I am not sure even this would work, as some ISP's DHCP their users to class C for security reasons. Now everyone from that ISP has the same IP! The key to this analysis may be, how many people have these users from the same IP on ignore?) Another useful analysis you may want to perform is to check the number of users on ignore per IP blocks of 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. This would start to give you a clue where the cockroaches are mostly coming from so that you can design some way to exterminate them. Unfortunately, this all hinges on the proper use of the ignore feuture to those that are clear abusers as opposed to those that we simply dislike (I am sure I am on a long ignore list - LOL) As far as the chatroom is concerned, I have noticed that these creatures don't come out of their caves to bug people in the chatroom too much. It is way too easy to put them on ignore, so I am not sweating that too much. I know that you want to spend your time adding useful features to this site instead of dealing with morons, but a more expansive system that tracks abusers may need to be designed if the level of noise to content is to be maintained on this site. A valid e-mail address is given by the ISP? Oy vey, we are in trouble...Now way to avoid Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL emails anymore nitro
This problem isn't just an ET problem -- it is a global internet problem. Unfortunately, the indentity of a user gets masked while on the internet and there are simply too many ways to subvert and get around being ignored (or get around being blocked by spam filters). I get 50 e-mails a day on my 6 year old e-mail address. It is virtually useless to me now, since scanning 50 messages a day for important mail is too laborious and also too risky (I may accidently delete an important e-mail). I hate to have to do this, but I'm thinking about going to a system where all mail is blocked except known e-mail addresses. The extreme for that here would be a global ignore where you only put names of people you are interested in. Anyone else who signs up new after your list is in place gets a color-code and then you decide if you want to put them in your inclusive list or send them to the global ignore.
I think an online user-ranking system would be awesome. We could then choose to ignore users with one star or less -- chances are, if they get to a point where they are worth one star, everyone is ignoring them anyway. Use a sort of psuedo-user democracy to make every user's job a little easier.